other avocations : and hath therefore defired the univerfity's permission to retire from his office, after the conclufion of the annual course in which he is at present engaged. But the hints, which he had collected for the use of his pupils, having been thought by fome of his more experienced friends not wholly unworthy of the public eye, it is therefore with the less reluctance that he now commits them to the press: though probably the little degree of reputation, which their author may have acquired by the candor of an audience (a teft widely different from that of a deliberate perufal) would have been better confulted by a total fuppression of his lectures; had that been a matter intirely within his power. - FOR the truth is, that the present publication is as much the effect of necessfity, as it is of choice. The notes which were taken by his hearers, have by some of them (tco partial in his favour) been thought worth revising and tranfcribing; and these transcripts have been frequently lent to others. Hence copies have been multiplied, in their nature imperfect, if not erroneous ; fome of which have fallen into mercenary hands, and become the object of clandestine fale. Having therefore so much reason to apprehend a furreptitious impression, he chose rather to Submit his own errors to the world, than to feem anfwerable for those of other men. And, with this apology, be commits himself to the indulgence of the public. |