In dealing concisely with a subject so vast, only brief hints and
suggestions can be expected; and I have not thought it worth while, for
the present at least, to change or amplify the manner of treatment. The
lectures are printed exactly as they were delivered at the Royal
Institution, more than four years ago. On one point of detail some
change will very likely by and by be called for. In the lecture on the
Town-meeting I have adopted the views of Sir Henry Maine as to the
common holding of the arable land in the ancient German mark, and as to
the primitive character of the periodical redistribution of land in the
Russian village community. It now seems highly probable that these views
will have to undergo serious modification in consequence of the valuable
evidence lately brought forward by my friend Mr. Denman Ross, in his
learned and masterly treatise on "The Early History of Landholding among
the Germans;" but as I am not yet quite clear as to how far this
modification will go, and as it can in nowise affect the general drift
of my argument, I have made no change in my incidental remarks on this
difficult and disputed question.
In describing some of the characteristic features of country life in New
England, I had especially in mind the beautiful mountain village in
which this preface is written, and in which for nearly a quarter of a
century I have felt myself more at home than in any other spot in
the world.
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