PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. THE first impression of this book has been exhausted much sooner than I had anticipated. It would be premature to refer at length to the strictures of critics while the work is still under review; and, since any value that it may possess lies rather in the main argument presented than in the exhibition of details, I have judged it expedient to allow it to reappear in its original form, although I am well aware how much it admits of improvement. I have no reason to complain of the criticisms the book has hitherto received. Some of them have been far too laudatory; and for the more adverse I was already prepared. It may not be out of place to remind readers that I am not to be held as committed to all the views which, for the purpose of the discussion, are provisionally not disputed, or as considering certain lines of argument to be applicable only to the extent that they are here applied. |