a dust and then complain we cannot see.

4. My purpose therefore is, to try if I can discover what those
Principles are which have introduced all that doubtfulness and
uncertainty, those absurdities and contradictions, into the several sects
of philosophy; insomuch that the wisest men have thought our ignorance
incurable, conceiving it to arise from the natural dulness and limitation
of our faculties. And surely it is a work well deserving our pains to
make a strict inquiry concerning the First Principles of Human Knowledge,
to sift and examine them on all sides, especially since there may be some
grounds to suspect that those lets and difficulties, which stay and
embarrass the mind in its search after truth, do not spring from any
darkness and intricacy in the objects, or natural defect in the
understanding, so much as from false Principles which have been insisted
on, and might have been avoided.

5. How difficult and discouraging soever this attempt may seem, when I
consider how many great and extraordinary men have gone before me in the
like designs, yet I am not without some hopes--upon the consideration
that the largest views are not always the clearest, and that he who is
short--sighted will be obliged to draw the object nearer, and may,
perhaps, by a close and narrow survey, discern that which had escaped far
better eyes.

6. A CHIEF SOURCE OF ERROR IN ALL PARTS OF KNOWLEDGE.--In order to
prepare the mind of the reader for the easier conceiving what
follows, it is proper to premise somewhat, by way of Introduction,
concerning the nature and abuse of Language. But the unravelling this
matter leads me in some measure to anticipate my design, by taking notice
of what seems to have had a chief part in rendering speculation intricate
and perplexed, and to have occasioned innumerable errors and difficulties
in almost all parts of knowledge. And that is the opinion that the mind
has a power of framing ABSTRACT IDEAS or notions of things. He who is
not a perfect stranger to the writings and disputes of philosophers must
needs acknowledge that no small part of them are spent about abstract
ideas. These are in a more especial manner thought to be the object of
those sciences which go by the name of LOGIC and METAPHYSICS, and of all
that which passes under the notion of the most abstracted and sublime
learning, in all which one shall scarce find any question handled in such
a manner as does not suppose their existence in