OF THIS EDITION. VH 



hence it is that my name appears in connexion with the 

 Philosophical works ; with which otherwise I should not have 

 presumed to meddle. 



As soon however as I had arranged and examined his 

 papers, I felt that, however imperfect they might be com- 

 pared with his own ideal and with what he would himself 

 have made them, they must on no account be touched by 

 anybody else ; for that if any other man were allowed to 

 make alterations in them, without notice, according to his 

 own judgment, the reader could have no means of knowing 

 when he was reading the words of Mr. Ellis and when those 

 of his editor, and so their peculiar value would be lost. 

 Perfect or imperfect, it was clear to me that they must be 

 kept as he left them, clear of all alien intrusion ; and not 

 knowing of any one who was likely to take so much inte- 

 rest or able to spend so much time in the matter as myself, 

 I proposed to take his part into my own hands and edit it ; 

 provided only that I might print his notes and prefaces 

 exactly as I found them ; explaining the circumstances which 

 had prevented him from completing or revising them, but 

 making no alteration whatever (unless of errors obviously 

 accidental which I might perhaps meet with in verifying any 

 of the numerous references and quotations) without his ex- 

 press sanction. That the text should be carefully printed 

 from the proper authorities, and all the bibliographical in- 

 formation supplied which was necessary to make the edition 

 in that respect complete, this I thought I might venture 

 to promise. And although I could not undertake to med- 

 dle with purely scientific questions, for which I have neither 

 the acquirements nor the faculties requisite, or to bring any 

 stores of learning, ancient or modern, to bear upon the va- 

 rious subjects of inquiry, although I had no means, I say, 

 of supplying what he had left to be done in those depart- 

 ments, and must therefore be content to leave the work so 

 far imperfect, yet in all matters which lay within my com- 

 pass I promised to do my best to complete the illustration 

 and explanation of the text ; adding where I had anything 



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