2 EXPLANATIONS. 



ticular px)ints, -4liat prdinaxy-Teaders _mightHb^ 

 ready to suppose its whole indications dispjoyed. 

 Had I bethought me of such possible results, I 

 might have announced, from the beginning, my 

 readiness to enter upon such explanations of points 

 objected to, and such reinforcements of the general 

 argument, as might promise to be serviceable. 

 And this would have seemed the more necessary, 

 in as far as it may be expected that there are 

 many j)oints in a new and startling hypothesis 

 which no one can be so well qualified to clear up 

 and strengthen as its author. I might have felt, 

 at the same time, that a new adventure, for what- 

 ever purpose, in the same field, was hazardous, 

 with regard to any favourable impression pre- 

 viously produced ; yet such an objection would, 

 again, have been at once overruled, seeing that 

 public favour and disfavour were alike beyond the 

 regard of an author who bore no bodily shape in 

 the eyes of his fellow-countrymen, and was likely 

 to remain for ever unknown. Such reflections 

 now occur to me, and I ,am_^onsequently_indjiced-- 

 to takeupjhe^en for the purpo§e_Q£_findfiavouring 

 to make good what is deficient, and reasserting and 

 confirming whatever has been unjustly challenged 



