These lectures are offered as a contribution to a study conducted until
lately on lines the reverse of scientific. What the late Dr Reeves and
Dr Joyce have done for the place-names of Ireland, Canon Isaac Taylor
has done for those of England, and Mr A. W. Moore for those of the Isle
of Man, has never been adequately performed for Scotland. It was my
original intention to expand these lectures, condensed from material
collected during many years, into a tolerably exhaustive trentise on the
subject but I am advised to publish them at once, just as they were
delivered and I am encouraged by the numbers and attention of those who
listened to them in the belief that there are plenty of students ready
to apply sound principles and cautious analysis to a branch of
archeology and philology at present in a very backward state. I have, it
is needless to say, derived much assistance from the writings of the
scholars above mentioned, to go well on from those of Professors Rhys
and TV. M, Skeat, and the late Dr Skene.