ether appellative or
technical. But these were the dreams of a poet, doomed at last to wake a
lexicographer. I soon found that it is too late to look for instruments,
when the work calls for execution, and that whatever abilities I had
brought to my task, with those I must finally perform it. To deliberate
whenever I doubted, to inquire whenever I was ignorant, would have
protracted the undertaking without end, and, perhaps, without much
improvement; for I did not find by my first experiments, that what I had
not of my own was easily to be obtained: I saw that one inquiry only
gave occasion to another, that book referred to book, that to search was
not always to find, and to find was not always to be informed; and that
thus to pursue perfection, was, like the first inhabitants of Arcadia,
to chase the sun, which, when they had reached the hill where he seemed
to rest, was still beheld at the same distance from them.

I then contracted my design, determining to confide in myself, and no
longer to solicit auxiliaries, which produced more incumbrance than
assistance; by this I obtained at least one advantage, that I set limits
to my work, which would in time be ended, though not completed.

Despondency has never so far prevailed as to depress me to negligence;
some faults will at last appear to be the effects of anxious diligence
and persevering activity. The nice and subtile ramifications of meaning
were not easily avoided by a mind intent upon accuracy, and convinced of
the necessity of disentangling combinations, and separating similitudes.
Many of the distinctions which to common readers appear useless and
idle, will be found real and important by men versed in the school
philosophy, without which no dictionary can ever be accurately compiled,
or skilfully examined.

Some senses however there are, which, though not the same, are yet so
nearly allied, that they are often confounded. Most men think
indistinctly, and, therefore, cannot speak with exactness; and,
consequently, some examples might be indifferently put to either
signification: this uncertainty is not to be imputed to me, who do not
form, but register the language; who do not teach men how they should
think, but relate how they have hitherto expressed their thoughts.

The imperfect sense of some examples I lamented, but could not remedy,
and hope they will be compensated by innumerable passages selected with
propriety, and preserved with exactness; some sh