y size,
usually repels the ordinary reader. Another, that the radical world,
which I especially address, is nowadays assailed with so much printed
matter that in it big books have slight show of favor. Another, that the
reader of any volume in the series subsequent to the first may on
reference to the first ascertain the train of connection and entire
scope of the thought I would present. And, finally, that such persons as
have been won to the support of the principles taught may interest
themselves, and perhaps others, in spreading knowledge of these
principles, as developed in the successive works.

On the last-mentioned point, a word. Having during the past decade
closely observed, and in some measure shared in, the discussion of
advanced sociological thought, I maintain with confidence the principles
of equal freedom, not only in their essential truth, but in the leading
applications I have made of them. At least, I may trust that, thus far
in either work, in coming to my more important conclusions, I have not
fallen into error through blind devotion to an "ism" nor halted at
faulty judgment because of limited investigation. I therefore hope to
have others join with me, some to work quite in the lines I follow, and
some to move at least in the direction of those lines.

The present volume I have prepared with care. My attention being
attracted about eight years ago to the direct legislation of
Switzerland, I then set about collecting what notes in regard to that
institution I could glean from periodicals and other publications. But
at that time very little of value had been printed in English. Later, as
exchange editor of a social reform weekly journal, I gathered such facts
bearing on the subject as were passing about in the American newspaper
world, and through the magazine indexes for the past twenty years I
gained access to whatever pertaining to Switzerland had gone on record
in the monthlies and quarterlies; while at the three larger libraries of
New York--the Astor, the Mercantile, and the Columbia College--I found
the principal descriptive and historical works on Switzerland. But from
all these sources only a slender stock of information with regard to the
influence of the Initiative and Referendum on the later political and
economic development of Switzerland was to be obtained. So, when, three
years ago, with inquiry on this point in mind, I spent some months in
Switzerland, about all I had at first on wh