that before we set ourselves upon inquiries of that na ture, it was necessary to examine our own abilities, and see what objects our understandings were, or were not, fitted to deal with. This I proposed to the company, who all readily assented; and thereupon it was agreed, that this should be our first inquiry. Some hasty and undigested thoughts on a subject I had never before considered, which I set down against our next meeting, gave the first entrance into this discourse; which having been thus begun by chance, was continued by intreaty; written by incoherent parcels; and after long intervals of neglect, resumed again, as my humour or occasions permitted and at last, in a retirement, where an attendance on my health gave me leisure, it was brought into that order thou now seest it.

This discontinued way of writing may have occasioned, besides others, two contrary faults, viz. that too little and too much may be said in it. If thou findest any thing wanting, I shall be glad, that what I have writ gives thee any desire, that I should have gone farther: if it seems too much to thee, thou must blame the subject; for when I put pen to paper, I thought all I should have to say on this matter, would have been contained in one sheet of paper; but the farther I went, the larger prospect I had; new discoveries led me still on, and so it grew insensibly to the bulk it now appears in. I will not deny, but possibly it might be reduced to a narrower compass than it is; and that some parts of it might be contracted; the way it has been writ in, by catches, and many long intervals of interruption, being apt to cause some repetitions. But to confess the truth, I am now too lazy, or too busy to make it shorter.

I am not ignorant how little 'I herein consult my own reputation, when I knowingly let it go with a fault, so apt to disgust the most judicious, who are always the nicest readers. But they who know sloth is apt to content itself with any excuse, will pardon me, if mine has prevailed on me, where, I think, I have a very good one. I will not therefore allege in my defence, that the same notion, having different respects, may d

VOL, I.

gives himself the pains to
to read it; I have so little af
fection to be in print, that if I were not flattered this
Essay might be of some use to others, as I think it has
been to me, I should have confined it to the view of
some friends, who gave the first occasion to it. My
appearing therefore in print, being on purpose to be as
useful as I may, I think it necessary to make what I
have to say, as easy and intelligible to all sorts of readers,
as I can. And I had much rather the speculative and
quick-sighted should complain of my being in some.
parts tedious, than that any one, not accustomed to
abstract speculations, or prepossessed with different
notions, should mistake, or not comprehend my
meaning.

It will possibly be censured as a great piece of vanity
or insolence in me, to pretend to instruct this our know-
ing age; it amounting to little less, when I own, that I
publish this Essay with hopes it may be useful to others.
But if it may be permitted to speak freely of those, who
with a feigned modesty condemn as useless, what they
themselves write, methinks it savours much more of
vanity or insolence, to publish a book for any other
end; and he fails very much of that respect he owes
the public, who prints, and consequently expects men
should read that, wherein he intends not they should
meet with any thing 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
for the worthlessness of my present. It is that chiefly
which secures me from the fear of censure, which I ex-
pect 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
mén. 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

f

excuse

i

terateness of the mischief, nor the prevalence of the fashion, shall be any excuse for those, who will not take care about the meaning of their own words, and will not suffer the significancy of their expressions to be inquired into.

I have been told, that a short epitome of this treatise, which was printed 1688, was by some condemned without reading, because innate ideas were denied in it; they too hastily concluding, that if innate ideas were not supposed, there would be little left, either of the notion or proof of spirits. If any one take the like offence at the entrance of this treatise, I shall desire him to read it through; and then I hope he will be convinced, that the taking away false foundations, is not to the prejudice, but advantage of truth; which is never injured or endangered so much, as when mixed with, or built on falsehood. In the second edition, I added as followeth :

The bookseller will not forgive me, if I say nothing of this second edition, which he has promised, by the correctness of it, shall make amends for the many faults committed in the former. He desires too, that it should be known, that it has one whole new chapter concerning identity, and many additions and amendments in other places. These I must inform my reader are not all new matter, but most of them either farther confirmations of what I had said, or explications, to prevent others being mistaken in the sense of what was formerly printed, and not any variation in me from it; I must only except the alterations I have made in Book II. Chap. 21.

What I had there writ concerning liberty and the will, I thought deserved as accurate a view, as I was capable of; those subjects having in all ages exercised the learned part of the world, with questions and difficulties, that have not a little perplexed morality and divinity; those parts of knowledge, that men are most concerned to be clear in. Upon a closer inspection into the working of men's minds, and a stricter examination of those motives and views they are turned by, I have found reason somewhat to alter the thoughts