INTRODUCTION. 
The plan of the following sheets grew out of the author's own wants,
and his repeated attempts to supply these wants. Its utility has been tested
by his own experience. In conversation with gentlemen of different professions,
to whom he has shewn his own Index, there has been but one opinion
expressed, a strong approbation of the plan, and an earnest wish that it may
become the property of every student. Its only claim is, that it will aid the
diligent student, and if perseveringly followed, it will at the end of a very
few years, place a fund of knowledge at his ready command, which no money
can purchase. 
Should any one procure this Book with the expectation that it will supersede
labor and study, he will be deservedly disappointed. No plans or
inventions can ever do that. But if he hopes it will, with a very moderate
share of time and labor spent upon it, yield him a great reward, I think I
may venture to promise that he will not be disappointed. 
The Common-place Book of Locke is the only one that has come into
much notice; and if that has, it is not owing to any intrinsic merit which it
possesses, but to its bearing his own great name, and professing to be the result
of his experience. But neither that nor any other Common-place Book
which I have ever seen, will either come into any thing like extensive use,
or be of any essential advantage to the student, and the man of literary habits. 
The reason is perfectly obvious to any one who has tried to use them for any
length of time. They require too much time, and too much labor. Every
thing that is saved must be copied out in full, and then noted also in the
Index. Few have the time, and fewer still the patience to 4o this. Books
are so common, and so constantly multiplying, that few have the courage to