PREFACE 



THEY who have presumed to dogmatize on nature, as on 

 some well investigated subject, either from self-con- 

 ceit or arrogance, and in the professorial style, have 

 inflicted the greatest injury on philosophy and learning. For 

 they have tended to stifle and interrupt inquiry exactly in pro- 

 portion as they have prevailed in bringing others to their opin- 

 ion ; and their own activity has not counterbalanced the mis- 

 chief they have occasioned by corrupting and destroying that 

 of others. They again who have entered upon a contrary 

 course, and asserted that nothing whatever can be known, 

 whether they have fallen into this opinion from their hatred of 

 the ancient sophists, or from the hesitation of their minds, or 

 from an exuberance of learning, have certainly adduced reasons 

 for it which are by no means contemptible. They have not, 

 however, derived their opinion from true sources, and, hurried 

 on by their zeal and some affectation, have certainly exceeded 

 due moderation. But the more ancient Greeks (whose writ- 

 ings have perished), held a more prudent mean, between the 

 arrogance of dogmatism, and the despair of scepticism ; and 

 though too frequently intermingling complaints and indigna- 

 tion at the difficulty of inquiry, and the obscurity of things, and 

 champing, as it were, the bit, have still persisted in pressing 

 their point, and pursuing their intercourse with nature ; think- 

 ing, as it seems, that the better method was not to dispute upon 

 the very point of the possibility of anything being known, but 

 to put it to the test of experience. Yet they themselves, by only 

 employing the power of the understanding, have not adopted 

 a fixed rule, but have laid their whole stress upon intense 

 meditation, and a continual exercise and perpetual agitation of 

 the mind. 



Our method, though difficult in its operation, is easily ex- 

 plained. It consists in determining the degrees of certainty, 

 whilst we, as it were, restore the senses to their former rank, but 

 generally reject that operation of the mind which follows close 

 upon the senses, and open and establish a new and certain 

 course for the mind from the first actual perceptions of the 

 senses themselves. This, no doubt, was the view taken by those 

 who have assigned so much to logic ; showing clearly thereby 



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