Thus much for the manner in which I have accomplished this work. With respect to giving any previous delineation of the substance of it, it is what I find some difficulty in doing; and which, besides, I think would be useless, since I suppose the reader will, as readers commonly do, peruse this Preface only after he has turned the last leaf of the book: taking it therefore for granted that the reader knows, by this time, what the present performance is, I proceed to give an account of my views in writing it. In the first place, I proposed to myself the information of posterity. A period will, sooner or later, arrive, at which the disciplining and flagellating practices now in use, and which have been so for so many centuries, will have been laid aside, and succeeded by others equally whimsical. And while the men of those days will overlook the defects of their own extravagant customs, or perhaps even admire the rationality of them, they will refuse to believe that the practices of which accounts are given in this work, ever were in use among mankind, and even matter of great moment among them. My design, therefore, was effectually to remove all their doubts in that respect, by handing down to them the flower and choice part of the facts and arguments on the subject. This book will likewise be extremely useful to the present age; and it will in the first place be so, the subject being considered in a moral light. The numerous cases that are produced in this book, of disciplines which offenders of all classes, kings as well as others, have zealously inflicted upon themselves, will supply a striking proof of that deep sense of justice which exists in the breasts of all men; and the reader will from such facts conclude, no doubt with pleasure, that even the offenders of the high rank we have just mentioned, notwithstanding the state by which they are surrounded, and the majestic countenance which they put on, sometimes in proportion as they more clearly know that they are wrong, are inwardly convinced that they owe compensation for their acts of injustice.