Posted by Orin Kerr:
Blackstone's Postscript:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2006_11_12-2006_11_18.shtml#1163798421
I have two early sets of Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of
England, and I was reminded today of the interesting Postcript inside
one of the editions (a 12th Edition, published in 1793) in which
Blackstone responds to his critics. The postscript appears right after
the preface from the original edition, dated November 2, 1765, which
Blackstone had ended by apologizing to the reader for any errors in
such a massive undertaking: "the candid and judicious reader will make
due allowances for the difficulties of a search so new, so extensive,
and so laborious."
Here is the postscript that appears on the next page:
NOTWITHSTANDING the diffidence expressed in the foregoing Preface,
no sooner was the work completed, but many of its positions were
vehemently attacked by zealots of all (even opposite)
denominations, religious as well as civil; by some with a greater,
by others with a less degree of acrimony. To such of these
animadverters as have fallen within the author's notice (for he
doubts not but some have escaped it) he owes at least this
obligation; that they have occasioned him from time to time to
revise his work, in respect to the particulars objected to; to
retract or expunge from it what appeared to be really erroneous; to
amend or supply it when inaccurate or defective; to illustrate and
explain it when obscure. But, where he thought the objections
ill-founded, he hath left and shall leave the book to defend
itself; being fully of opinion, that if his principles be false and
his doctrine unwarrantable, no apology from himself can make them
right; if founded in truth and rectitude, no censure from others
can make them wrong.
Incicentally, according to [1]the dictionary, "animadverter" roughly
means "critic."
References
1. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/animadverter
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