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I am well aware that the ideas of which the preceding pages may have suggested the barest outline are capable of endless working out and illustration. And though I believe myself to have made no assertion that could not be fully vindicated if assailed, I realise most keenly that a complete statement of the Humanist position far transcends, not only my own powers, but those of any single man. But I hoped that those who were disposed to sympathy and open-mindedness would pardon the defects and overlook the gaps in this informal survey of a glorious prospect, while to those who are too imperviously encased in habit or in sloth, or too deeply severed from me by an alien idiosyncrasy, I knew that I could never hope to bring conviction, however much, nor to avoid offence, however little, I might try to say. And so I thought the good ship Humanism might sail on its adventurous quest for the Islands of the Blest with the lighter freight of these essays as safely and hopefully as with the heaviest cargo.

Oxford, August 1903.