sciences require alteration and enlargement; the articles themselves must, in the majority of instances, be written afresh rather than simply revised. The scientific department of the work will thus be to a great extent new. In attempting to distribute the headings for the new edition, so as fairly to cover the ground occupied by modern science, I have been largely indebted to Professor Huxley and Professor Clerk Maxwell, whose valuable help in the matter I am glad to have an opportunity of acknowledging.
Passing from Natural and Physical Science to Literature, History, and Philosophy, it may be noted that many sections of knowledge connected with these departments display fresh tendencies, and are working towards new results, which, if faithfully reflected, will require a new style of treatment. Speaking generally, it may be said that human nature and human life are the great objects of inquiry in these departments. Man, in his individual powers, complex relationships, associated activities, and collective progress, is dealt with alike in Literature, History, and Philosophy. In this wider aspect, the rudest and most fragmentary records of savage and barbarous races, the earliest stories and traditions of every lettered people, no less than their developed literatures, mythologies, and religions, are found to have a meaning and value of their own. As yet the rich materials thus supplied for throwing light on the central problems of human life and history have only been very partially turned to account. It may be said, indeed, that their real significance is perceived and appreciated, almost for the first time, in our own day. But under the influence of the modern spirit, they are now being dealt with in a strictly scientific manner The available facts of human history, collected over the widest areas, are carefully co-ordinated and grouped together, in the hope of ultimately evolving the laws of progress, moral and material, which underlie them, and which, when evolved, will help to connect and interpret the whole onward movement of the race. Already the critical use of the comparative method has produced very striking results in this new and stimulating field of research. Illustrations of this are seen in the rise and rapid development of the comparatively modern science of Anthropology, and the successful cultivation of the assistant sciences, such as Archæology, Ethnography, and Philology, which directly contribute materials for its use. The activity of geographical research in both hemispheres, and the large additions recently made to our knowledge of older and newer continents by the discoveries of eminent travellers and explorers, afford the anthropologist additional materials for his work. Many branches of mental philosophy, again, such as Ethics, Psychology, and Æsthetics, while supplying important elements to the new science, are at the same time very largely interested in its results, and all may be regarded as subservient to the wider problems raised by the philosophy of history. In the new edition of the Encyclopædia full justice will, it is hoped, be done to the progress made in these various directions.
It may be well, perhaps, to state at the outset the position taken by the Encyclopædia Britannica in relation to the active controversies of the time—Scientific, Religious, and Philosophical. This is the more necessary, as the prolific activity of modern science has naturally stimulated speculation, and given birth to a number of somewhat crude conjec-
