ith anything of use to
themselves or others: and should nothing else be found allowable in this
Treatise, yet my design will not cease to be so; and the goodness of my
intention ought to be some excuse for the worthlessness of my present.
It is that chiefly which secures me from the fear of censure, which
I expect not to escape more than better writers. Men's principles,
notions, and relishes are so different, that it is hard to find a book
which pleases or displeases all men. I acknowledge the age we live in is
not the least knowing, and therefore not the most easy to be satisfied.
If I have not the good luck to please, yet nobody ought to be offended
with me. I plainly tell all my readers, except half a dozen, this
Treatise was not at first intended for them; and therefore they need not
be at the trouble to be of that number. But yet if any one thinks fit to
be angry and rail at it, he may do it securely, for I shall find some
better way of spending my time than in such kind of conversation. I
shall always have the satisfaction to have aimed sincerely at truth
and usefulness, though in one of the meanest ways. The commonwealth
of learning is not at this time without master-builders, whose mighty
designs, in advancing the sciences, will leave lasting monuments to the
admiration of posterity: but every one must not hope to be a Boyle or
a Sydenham; and in an age that produces such masters as the great
Huygenius and the incomparable Mr. Newton, with some others of that
strain, it is ambition enough to be employed as an under-labourer in
clearing the ground a little, and removing some of the rubbish that
lies in the way to knowledge;--which certainly had been very much more
advanced in the world, if the endeavours of ingenious and industrious
men had not been much cumbered with the learned but frivolous use
of uncouth, affected, or unintelligible terms, introduced into the
sciences, and there made an art of, to that degree that Philosophy,
which is nothing but the true knowledge of things, was thought unfit or
incapable to be brought into well-bred company and polite conversation.
Vague and insignificant forms of speech, and abuse of language, have so
long passed for mysteries of science; and hard and misapplied words,
with little or no meaning, have, by prescription, such a right to be
mistaken for deep learning and height of speculation, that it will not
be easy to persuade either those who speak or those who hear them, t