PREFACE A PUBLIC lecture, as the term is used at Oxford, is the setting forth of matters in some way belonging to the speaker's particular branch of learning for an audience not assumed to be specially versed in its methods or applications. A considerable part of this volume represents, in text or in substance, public lectures actually delivered in the University; the whole of it is in a general way of the same character. A few pieces are included which are slightly or not at all connected with the Faculty of Law. Those whom the subjects do not interest will easily forgive the inclusion of these pieces, since they are so few. To lawyers I might justify one of them by the authority of Mr. Justice Wills, from whose "Eagle's Nest" in the valley of Sixt I started, many years ago, on one of my first days of real mountaineering, and another by boldly perverting Bracton's words propter jus gladii quod dividi non potest. To the minority of readers who may be more interested in these outlying essays than in the main part of the book, I need hardly make excuses for having taken the first occasion of preserving them. Some lectures on the History of the Science of Politics, which might otherwise have formed part of this book, were separately republished a few months ago for a special reason which was then stated. F. P. LINCOLN'S INN, October 1890. |