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 which to base investigations was a collection of commonplace or beclouded fact from the newspapers, a few statistics and opinions from an English magazine or two, and some excerpts from volumes by De Laveleye and Freeman which contained chapters treating of Swiss institutions. Soon after, as a result of my observations in the country, I contributed, under the caption "Republican Switzerland," a series of articles to the New York "Times" on the Swiss government of today, and, last April, an essay to the "Chautauquan" magazine on "The Referendum in Switzerland." On the form outlined in these articles I have constructed the first three chapters of the present work. The data, however, excepting in a few cases, are corrected to 1892, and in many respects besides I have profited by the labors of other men in the same field.