to me,
and which its impossible for me to make without the help of others;
although I do not so much flatter my self, as to hope that the Publick,
shares much in my concernments; yet will I not also be so much wanting
to my self, as to give any cause to those who shall survive me, to
reproach this, one day to me, That I could have left them divers things
far beyond what I have done, had I not too much neglected to make them
understand wherein they might contribute to my designe.

And I thought it easie for me to choose some matters, which being not
subject to many Controversies, nor obliging me to declare any more of my
Principles then I would willingly, would neverthelesse expresse clearly
enough, what my abilities or defects are in the Sciences. Wherein I
cannot say whether I have succeeded or no; neither will I prevent the
judgment of any man by speaking of my own Writings: but I should be
glad they might be examin'd; and to that end I beseech all those who
have any objections to make, to take the pains to send them to my
Stationer, that I being advertised by him, may endeavour at the same
time to adjoyn my Answer thereunto: and by that means, the Reader seeing
both the one and the other, may the more easily judge of the Truth. For
I promise, that I will never make any long Answers, but only very freely
confesse my own faults, if I find them; or if I cannot discover them,
plainly say what I shal think requisite in defence of what I have writ,
without adding the explanation of any new matter, that I may not
endlesly engage my self out of one into another.

Now if there be any whereof I have spoken in the beginning, of the
Opticks and of the Meteors, which at first jarr, by reason that I call
them Suppositions, and that I seem not willing to prove them; let a man
have but the patience to read the whole attentively, and I hope he will
rest satisfied: For (me thinks) the reasons follow each other so
closely, that as the later are demonstrated by the former, which are
their Causes; the former are reciprocally proved by the later, which are
their Effects. And no man can imagine that I herein commit the fault
which the Logicians call a _Circle_; for experience rendring the
greatest part of these effects most certain, the causes whence I deduce
them serve not so much to prove, as to explain them; but on the
contrary, they are those which are proved by them. Neither named I them
Suppositions, that it might be known that I co