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It is important to deal first with the relationship of the Eleventh Edition to its predecessors. In addition to providing a digest of general information, such as is required in a reference-book pure and simple, the object of the Encyclopædia Britannica has always been to give reasoned discussions on all the great questions of practical or speculative interest, presenting the results of accumulated knowledge and original inquiry in the form of articles which are themselves authoritative contributions to the literature of their subjects, adapted for the purpose of systematic reading and study. In this way its successive editions have been among the actual sources through which progressive improvements have been attained in the exposition of many important branches of learning. The Ninth Edition in particular, to which the Eleventh is the lineal successor—for the name of the Tenth was used only to indicate the incorporation of supplementary volumes which left the main fabric untouched—was universally recognized as giving the most scholarly contemporary expression to this constructive ideal. The reputation thus gained by the Encyclopædia Britannica as a comprehensive embodiment of accurate scholarship—the word being used here for authoritative exposition in all departments of knowledge—carries with it a responsibility which can only be fulfilled by periodical revision in the light of later research. Yet in any complete new edition, and certainly in that which is here presented, due acknowledgment must be made to the impulse given by those who kept the sacred fire burning in earlier days. In this respect, if a special dept is owing to the editors of the Ninth Edition, and particularly to the great services of Robertson Smith, it must not be forgotten that long before their time the Encyclopædia Britannica had enlisted among its contributors many eminent writers, whose articles, substantially carried forward at each revision, became closely associated with the name and tradition of the work. To