The main reason for this republication is that which prompted the second edition; many of these points are still hotly contested, and a lapse into silence would be interpreted by a good many people as a willingness to let my cause go by default.

The recent death of the scholar who had been the main supporter of these contrary views, though most regrettable from the personal point of view, rather emphasizes than weakens the necessity for republication. For he lived to a great age, in full possession of his faculties, and personally respected by those who most disagreed with his writings; moreover, in death as in life, he has a band of devoted followers, able and anxious to defend his tenets and his memory as far as the actual documents will permit. It is therefore as fair now as it was in 1915 to remind readers of the guarantees that I have tried to give, and of the extent to which those guarantees seem to have been effectual. One serious error, pointed out by Mr Beck, was at once corrected in full, with an apology to my readers. But, on the whole, my most determined adversaries seem to acknowledge, if only tacitly, the general accuracy of the facts which I produce.

And this is the more remarkable, since my own challenge for some explanation of what seemed very unaccountable lapses have been echoed, by reviewers unknown to me, in two of the most widely-read papers of their kind in Great Britain.