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Rh has been intermitted have been short. We cannot on the whole regret the lapse of time before publication. Though we have not found reason to change any of the leading views with which we began to prepare for the task, they have gained much in clearness and comprehensiveness through the long interval, especially as regards the importance which we have been led to attach to the history of transmission. It would indeed be to our shame if we had failed to learn continually.

21. The mode of procedure adopted from the first was to work out our results independently of each other, and to hold no counsel together except upon results already provisionally obtained. Such differences as then appeared, usually bearing a very small proportion to the points of immediate agreement, were discussed on paper, and where necessary repeatedly discussed, till either agreement or final difference was reached. These ultimate differences have found expression among the alternative readings. No rule of precedence has been adopted; but documentary attestation has been in most cases allowed to confer the place of honour as against internal evidence, range of attestation being further taken into account as between one well attested reading and another. This combination of completely independent operations permits us to place far more confidence in the results than either of us could have presumed to cherish had they rested on his own sole responsibility. No individual mind can ever act with perfect uniformity, or free itself completely from its own idiosyncrasies: the danger of unconscious caprice is inseparable from personal judgement. We venture to hope that the present text has escaped some risks of this kind by being the production of two editors of different habits of mind, working