GENERAL PREFACE
THERE is only too much truth in the frequent complaint
that history, as compared with the physical sciences, is
^ neglected by the modern public. But historians have the
remedy in their own hands; choosing problems of equal im-
portance to those of the scientist, and treating them with equal
accuracy, they will command equal attention. Those who insist
that the proportion of accurately ascertainable facts is smaller
in history, and therefore the room for speculation wider, do
not thereby establish any essential distinction between truth-
seeking in history and truth-seeking in chemistry. The his-
torian, whatever be his subject, is as definitely bound as the
chemist "to proclaim certainties as certain, falsehoods as false,
and uncertainties as dubious". Those are the words, not of a
modern scientist, but of the seventeenth-century monk, Jean
Mabillon; they sum up his literary profession of faith. Men will
*follow us in history as implicitly as they follow the chemist, if
only we will form the chemist's habit of marking clearly where
our facts end and our inferences begin. Then the public, so
far from discouraging our speculations, will most heartily en-
courage them; for the most positive man of science is always
grateful to anyone who, bj^ putting forward a working theory,
stimulates further discussion.
The present series, therefore, appeals directly to that craving
for clearer facts which has been bred in these times of storm
and stress. No care can save us altogether from error; but, for
our own sake and the public's, we have elected to adopt a
safeguard dictated by ordinary business commonsense. What-
ever errors of fact are pointed out by reviewers or correspondents
shall be publicly corrected with the least possible delay. After
a year of publication, all copies shall be provided with such an
erratum-slip without waiting for the chance of a second edition;
and each fresh volume in this series shall contain a full list of
the errata noted in its immediate predecessor. After the lapse
of a year from the first publication of any volume, and at any