第1章 PREFACE

This book is a sequel to my History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century.The title which I then ventured to use was more comprehensive than the work itself deserved.I felt my inability to write a continuation which should at all correspond to a similar title for the nineteenth century.I thought,however,that by writing an account of the compact and energetic school of English Utilitarians I could thrown some light both upon them and their contemporaries.I had the advantage for this purpose of having been myself a disciple of the school during its last period.Many accidents have delayed my completion of the task;and delayed also its publication after it was written.Two books have been published since that time,which partly cover the same ground;and I must be content with referring my readers to them for further information.They are The English Radicals,by Mr C.B.Roylance Kent;and English Political Philosophy from Hobbes to Maine,by Professor Graham.