Our British Ancestors - Who And What Were They? Book

PREFACE. THE history of the ancient Britons is in every way so obscure, that each attempt to rescue any portion of its traditions, an to give confirmation to the conjectures or the ascertained facts of previous investigators must be acceptable, one would presume, to the enquirer after historical truth. History of our own country by contemporaneous writers, until within a comparatirely recent period, we may be literally said to have none and the traditional accounts of . our early ancestors which we derive from Nennius or whoever may have been the author of the work which passes under. his name, are so brief and obscure, so wanting in confirmation, that every additional evidence which me may be enabled to bring forward, cannot be otherwise than valuable while the history of Geoffry of Monmouth and of other monkish writers are so long subsequent to the facts and circumstances which they pretend to relate, and so frequently filled with fable, that it is difficult to decide what to receive and what to reject. Where direct testimony cannot be had, circumstantial evidence, when surrounded by numerous circumstances, probabilities, and occasionally even of possibilities, may well be accepted, as being as near an C approach to truth as we may be enabled to arrive at I and perhaps a vast number of circumstances culmi . nating to one and the same point, may be received as better evidence than the single unsupported testimony of any individual author. Scientific investigation has made great progress of late years archxtological discoveries are more noted and appreciated than formerly there is greater interchange of discovery and of opinion different sciences are now called in to render a mutual aid in enabling us to work out the problem of the history of the human race, of which each individual nation forms a component part, and of which, therefore, none should be overlooked...Read More