quarters at once champions armed with the panoply of knowledge should
be able to spring to his confutation.

To carry out in a satisfactory manner over a field so immense our
lawfully ambitious aim was, as we realized at the outset, not
possible to any two men who are primarily engaged, as we are, in
other work of an exacting nature. Therefore, to render feasible the
execution of our undertaking, we decided to invite the collaboration
of many scholars and specialists, each of whom could, out of the
fullness of information, speak with authority on some particular
phase of the general subject. We are glad to say that the eminent
writers to whom we addressed ourselves answered with promptitude and
alacrity to our call, and have supplied us with such a body of
material as to enable us to bring out a book that is absolutely
unique.

From each contributor we asked nothing but a plain verifiable
statement of facts, and that, we think, is exactly what they have
given us, for, while we do not make ourselves personally responsible
for everything set down in the following pages, we believe that what
stands written therein bears every mark of careful research and of
absolute reliability.

Although on many of our subjects little more remains to be said than
what appears in the text, yet the treatment on the whole does not
claim to be exhaustive, and therefore each writer has, at our
request, appended to his contribution a short and carefully selected
bibliography, so that those who are interested may have a guide for
further reading. For our part, we consider these lists of works of
reference to be a highly useful feature.