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EXPLANATIONS. 



When the work to which this may be regarded as a sup- 

 plement was published, my design was not only to be per- 

 sonally removed from all praise or censure which it might 

 evoke, but to write no more upon the subject. I said to 

 myself, Let this book go forth to be received as truth, or 

 to provoke others to a controversy which may result in 

 establishing or overthrowing it; but be my task now 

 ended. I did not then reflect that, even though written 

 by one better informed or more skilled in argument than 

 I can pretend to be, it might leave the subject in such a 

 condition that the author should have to regret seeing it, 

 in a great measure, misapprehended in its general scope, 

 and also so much excepted to, justly and unjustly, on par- 

 ticular points, that ordinary readers might be ready to 

 suppose its whole indications disproved. Had I bethought 

 me of such possible results, I might have announced, 

 from the beginning, my readiness to enter upon such ex- 

 planations of points objected to, and such re-enforcements 

 of the general argument, as might promise to be service- 

 able. And this would have seemed the more necessary, 

 in as far as it may be expected that there are many points 

 in a new and startling hypothesis which no one can be so 

 well qualified to clear up and strengthen as its author. 1 

 might have felt at the same time that a new adventure, 

 for whatever purpose, in the same field was hazardous, 

 with regard to any favorable impression previously pro- 

 duced ; yet such an objection would, again, have been at 

 once overruled, seeing that public favor and disfavor 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 forever unknown. Such reflections now 

 occur to me, and I am consequently induced to take up 

 the pen for the purpose of endeavoring to make good what 

 is deficient, and reasserting and confirming whatever has 

 been unjustly challenged in my book. In doing so, I 

 shall study to direct attention solely to fact and argument, 

 or what appear as such, overlooking the uncivil expres 

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