A preface is best written last, after a book is done and its author may look back to survey what he hopes he has accomplished and what he must admit he has not. In hindsight virginity by itself has seemed a very large field to till, but with that reflection also comes a sense of the awareness that a really comprehensive treatment of misgiving, that subject would somehow have to encompass an enormous ter rain, the whole length and breadth of Christianity's attitude toward sexuality from the earliest times down to the high Middle Ages. It could be argued that no small book could cover so much...

Adam Smith was one of the most important seminal social philosophers of modern times. Although his great masterpiece - the Wealth at Nations - is most frequently associated with the field of economics, it has exer cised a profound and abiding influence not only in that but in all areas of social theory and practice as well. In view of this it is not a little puzzling that after nearly two centuries there does not exist a single reliable account of the full range of his social philosophy. The "circumstances which have contributed to this void in the literature are easily identified. All who...