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PREFACE

To apologise too profoundly for the publication of a book is to insult the reader to whom it is offered, but at the same time I should like it to be clear, particularly as I have not hesitated to express my opinions with some downrightness, that no one is more conscious of the incomplete­ness and immaturities of this little essay than its author. The crudities which have been purged on reviewing it after two fallow years suggest the innumerable errors of judgment that may still remain. In excuse for these it may be urged that maturity of judgment comes only with experience and knowledge, and that the particular branch of investigation to which this study belongs presents data so manifold and so varied that their acquisition and assimi­lation must necessarily be a long process. But despite its defects its publication appeared worth the while.: Some of the suggestions are, I think, new and worth consideration if