of our being,--the connection between the body and the mind.

It is unnecessary to mention the various well-known works of authority
and illustration, as they are referred to in the text. But I cannot
refrain from bearing my grateful testimony to the value of the
"Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society" and the
"New-England Historical and Genealogical Register." The "Historical
Collections" and the "Proceedings" of the Essex Institute have
afforded me inestimable assistance. Such works as these are providing
the materials that will secure to our country a history such as no
other nation can have. Our first age will not be shrouded in darkness
and consigned to fable, but, in all its details, brought within the
realm of knowledge. Every person who desires to preserve the memory of
his ancestors, and appreciate the elements of our institutions and
civilization, ought to place these works, and others like them, on the
shelves of his library, in an unbroken and continuing series. A debt
of gratitude is due to the earnest, laborious, and disinterested
students who are contributing the results of their explorations to the
treasures of antiquarian and genealogical learning which accumulate in
these publications.

A source of investigation, especially indispensable in the preparation
of the present work, deserves to be particularly noticed. In 1647, the
General Court of Massachusetts provided by law for the taking of
testimony, in all cases, under certain regulations, in the form of
depositions, to be preserved _in perpetuam rei memoriam_. The evidence
of witnesses was prepared in writing, beforehand, to be used at the
trials; they to be present at the time, to meet further inquiry, if
living within ten miles, and not unavoidably prevented. In a capital
case, the presence of the witness, as well as his written testimony,