The-Conquest-of-Happiness-by-Bertrand-Russell

Then there is the inventor who has never been able
to get anyone to examine the merits of his
invention; manufacturers are set in their ways and
will not consider any innovation, while the few
who are progressive keep inventors of their own,
who succeed in warding off the intrusions of
unauthorised genius; the learned societies,
strangely enough, lose one’s manuscripts or return
them unread; individuals to whom one appeals are
unaccountably unresponsive. How is such a state
of affairs to be explained? Obviously there is a
close corporation of men who wish to divide
among themselves the plums to be obtained by
means of invention; the man who does not belong
to this close corporation will not be listened to.
Then there is the man who has a genuine grievance
founded upon actual fact, but who generalises in
the light of his experience and arrives at the
conclusion that his own misfortune affords the key
to the universe; he discovers, let us say, some
scandal about the Secret Service which it is to the
interest of the Government to keep dark. He can