THE first thirty-two pages of this lecture, with the accompanying notes and ndicated additions, were printed soon after it was decided to publish it. Then an unexpected pressure of other labors together with a temporary failure of health, prevented the writer from furnishing any more copy till after an interval of several months; when thirty-two pages more were committed to the press. By this time the local and transient interest excited by the discussion of the subject in this city, had subsided; and it had, meanwhile, been made to appear quite obvious that the mis-statements and objections which were the immediate occasion of the writer's consent to publish the lecture, had been too inconsiderately made, to render their correction or their further exposure a matter of any urgent importance. Hence the remaining portion of the lecture with the additions and notes have been prepared for the press without any special stimulus or incitement to the task, the attention of the writer being, in the mean time, necessarily directed mainly to other pursuits. Indeed but for the fact that so considerable a part of the printing was already done, he would now have deemed it unadvisable to proceed with the publication. Nevertheless to guard against misapprehension he feels bound to say that the additional examination which he has been able to give the subject, has served not only to increase his interest in it, but also to confirm him in his views as expressed when the lecture was delivered. He sees no cause to retract any opinion then uttered, but reason rather, as the notes manifest, to speak even more strongly on some of the very points upon which his views were, by a few, called in question. This declaration he makes, however, with a deep sense of his liability to err and with a full and cordial recognition of the right of others to think for themselves and to give utterance to their thoughts. CLEVELAND, MARCH 28, 1850. S. B. CANFIELD. |