Blair Collection > History of the Celtic language

Rabbinical prejudices, we maintain that both live
and breathe still, radically and elementarily exa-
mined, in the great Celtic family.
To those who have obliged the author with the
use of their libraries, he begs to return heartfelt
thanks. He would record their names if he did
not judge that they themselves would rather
not. He takes the field, he is aware, against
Prejudice, confirmed by authority — prejudices
which those who are wedded to them cannot de-
fend. Of the truth of his principle, however,
as an aggregate whole, he is himself convinced to
the full; therefore, as a moral agent, he considers
himself answerable only to his God.
The liberty he takes with the sacred text, he
takes hesitatingly — more in the spirit of inquiry
than of correction, and would wish the reader to
view it in this light. Where he deviates from the
standards in Celtic orthography, he deviates in-
tentionally, for the sake of the English reader, to
whom our Rule of a broad vowel in one syllable
requiring the next syllable also to begin with a
broad vowel, and so of the small vowels, might
prove a stumbllngblock.