Heaven forbid that I should compare myself to the author of Hudibras,
but still, if my books succeed after my death--which they may or may
not, I know nothing about it--any way, if they do succeed, let it be
understood that they failed during my life for a few very obvious
reasons of which I was quite aware, for the effect of which I was
prepared before I wrote my books, and which on consideration I found
insufficient to deter me. I attacked people who were at once
unscrupulous and powerful, and I made no alliances. I did this
because I did not want to be bored and have my time wasted and my
pleasures curtailed. I had money enough to live on, and preferred
addressing myself to posterity rather than to any except a very few
of my own contemporaries. Those few I have always kept well in mind.
I think of them continually when in doubt about any passage, but
beyond those few I will not go. Posterity will give a man a fair
hearing; his own times will not do so if he is attacking vested
interests, and I have attacked two powerful sets of vested interests
at once. [The Church and Science.] What is the good of addressing
people who will not listen? I have addressed the next generation and
have therefore said many things which want time before they become
palatable. Any man who wishes his work to stand will sacrifice a
good deal of his immediate audience for the sake of being attractive
to a much larger number of people later on.
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