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Preface... This book owes its inception to an attempt to re-write and enlarge the second edition or the author's Intrduction to the History or English Law; therefore a certain amount or material from that manual has been incorporated.
With the progress of the task, however, certain differences have emerged in aim and treatment which render the present volume a new work. These differences have principally been due to a desire to provide students with the historical foundations or modern law rather than to give an introductory sketch of English Legal History.
The distinction is superficially slight, but actually it is profound and is represented. in part by the proportion 0£ space allotted to various topics. The subject or sources is treated lightly, partly because of existing students' books, but also because this knowledge does not add much to the comprehension of the principles of substantive law. On the other hand the difficult question of the mental element in Tort, which remains unsettled, has been accorded more detailed exposition.
Nevertheless two factors. have been constantly borne in mind. First, the book is essentially historical, and secondly, it is an Introduction. As a history, modern rules which are found in all students' textbooks have been eschewed save where their statement was demanded by the argument. As an Introduction, emphasis has been laid throughout on basic principles, the roots of which go so deep that the relatively distant past occupies most or the space and modern cases and statutes are few....
H.P. King's College London October, 1932
