PREFACE
I should not have presumed to choose for any lectures of mine such a
subject as that which I have tried to treat in this book. The subject was
chosen by the Institution where the lectures were delivered. Still less
should I have presumed to print them of my own accord, knowing how
fragmentary and crude they are. They were printed at the special request
of my audience. Least of all, perhaps, ought I to have presumed to
publish them, as I have done, at Cambridge, where any inaccuracy or
sciolism (and that such defects exist in these pages, I cannot but fear)
would be instantly detected, and severely censured: but nevertheless, it
seemed to me that Cambridge was the fittest place in which they could see
the light, because to Cambridge I mainly owe what little right method or
sound thought may be found in them, or indeed, in anything which I have
ever written.