This study was started more years ago than I care to count under the encouragement of Amherst College, Massachusetts. I wish to express my appreciation of their interest in modern Scottish history, and my hope is that they will accept from me this and any further work in the field as a sincere, if belated, expression of my gratitude.

My thanks are due to many friends with whom I have talked these matters over; I make particular mention of Alexander Meiklejohn of Berkeley, California, of Carter Goodrich of Columbia and of John M. Gaus of Harvard. These, and others, have led me to appreciate the zest and vitality of American Scholarship in the field of social and intellectual history, and I should like to think that something of this spirit had passed into my work.

Nearer home, I owe a great deal to Dr. H. W. Meikle and to Dr. J. R. Peddie. The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland has made a very generous grant in aid of publication; and I am sure that I am fortunate in my publishers' patience and understanding.

A further study of democratic thought, sentiment and action in Scotland during the first half of the 19th century is in preparation, and in it attention will be paid to figures and movements that have not received adequate treatment in the pages which follow.

Edinburgh L.J. SAUNDERS

April 1950 . . .