former, either from hurry or from
considerations of business or for want of mental power to take in and
embrace the other (which must needs be most men's case), I wish that
they may succeed to their desire in what they are about, and obtain
what they are pursuing. But if any man there be who, not content
to rest in and use the knowledge which has already been discovered,
aspires to penetrate further; to overcome, not an adversary in
argument, but nature in action; to seek, not pretty and probable
conjectures, but certain and demonstrable knowledge;--I invite all
such to join themselves, as true sons of knowledge, with me, that
passing by the outer courts of nature, which numbers have trodden,
we may find a way at length into her inner chambers. And to make my
meaning clearer and to familiarise the thing by giving it a name, I
have chosen to call one of these methods or ways _Anticipation of the
Mind_, the other _Interpretation of Nature_.

Moreover I have one request to make. I have on my own part made it my
care and study that the things which I shall propound should not only
be true, but should also be presented to men's minds, how strangely
soever preoccupied and obstructed, in a manner not harsh or
unpleasant. It is but reasonable however (especially in so great a
restoration of learning and knowledge) that I should claim of men one
favour in return; which is this; If any one would form an opinion or
judgment either out of his own observation, or out of the crowd of
authorities, or out of the forms of demonstration (which have now
acquired a sanction like that of judicial laws), concerning these
speculations of mine, let him not hope that he can do it in passage or
by the by; but let him examine the thing thoroughly; let him make some
little trial for himself of the way which I describe and lay out; let
him familiarise his thoughts with that subtlety of nature to which
experience bears witness; let him correct by seasonable patience and
due delay the depraved and deep-rooted habits of his mind; and when
all this is done and he has begun to be his own master, let him (if he
will) use his own judgment.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST FOLIO EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS (1623)[A]

TO THE GREAT VARIETY OF READERS

From the most able, to him that can but spell: There you are number'd.
We had rather you were weighd. Especially, when the fate of all Bookes
depends vpon your capacities: and not of your heads alone, but