CO 



PREFACE. 



I AM: not aware that this reprint of some of my scattered 

 notes arid essays demands any apology. 



The practice of making such collections and selections 

 \ by the author himself has now become very general, and is 

 N much better done thus than by friends after his death. 



Besides this, it supplies a growing want of these busy 

 times, when so many of us are prevented by the struggles 

 of business from sitting down to the consecutive systematic 

 study of a formal treatise. 



I have kept this demand steadily in view throughout, by 

 selecting subjects which are likely to be interesting to all 

 readers who are sufficiently intelligent to prefer sober fact 

 to sensational fiction, but who, at the same time, do not 

 profess to be scientific specialists. 



In the writing of these papers my highest literary am- 

 f* bition has always been to combine clearness and simplicity 

 with some attempt at philosophy. 



W. M. W. 

 WILLESDEN, September, 1882. 



< 



'r(J 



