Preface to the Second Edition

• Author: Christopher C. Nicholls
• Profession: Faculty of Law, University of Western Ontario
• Pages: 15-17

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PREFACE TO THE

SECOND EDITION

The bearded fellow at the front of the classroom that morning had

been invited by our professor to deliver a guest lecture. (Inviting a

“guest lecturer,” as I would discover years later, is perhaps the most art-

ful form of shirking known to t he university teacher.)

When this gentleman wasn’t waiting tables at the local Mother

Tucker’s, he apparently directed stage plays for a livi ng. He was a fount

of practical wisdom. “The purpose of the f‌irst rehearsal,” I heard him

declaim above the chorus of yawns, “is simply to get the company to

the second rehearsal.”

The meaning of this cur ious comment was quite lost on me in that

lecture hall several decades ago. But I now understand the sentiment

perfectly. And so I have come to believe that the purpose of a f‌ir st edi-

tion of a law book is chief‌ly to get one to the second edition.

I have often read prefaces to second editions of legal text s in which

the authors have haughtily explai ned that their “thi nking has evolved”

since the f‌irst edition. This incomparable expression appears to mean

no more than this: th at the author has spotted all t he howling errors he

made the f‌irst time around. It is easier on the ego, of course, to insist

that one has climbed to a h igher intellectual plateau th an to admit that

one has turned up a pile of embarrassing mist akes. Admitting mis-

takes seems to sug gest that one is not infall ible, which is bad, or that

one is prone to change one’s mind, which is worse. Openly changing

one’s mind, observation suggests, is altogether to be avoided if one is

running for public off‌ice or writing a s econd edition. For my part, how-

ever, I am attracted to the famous rejoinder ascribed to John May nard

Keynes. Accused th at he had reversed himsel f on some point, Keynes