An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. | Page 4

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 be convenient or necessary to prove or illustrate several
parts of the same discourse, and that so it has happened in many parts
of this: but waiving that, I shall frankly avow that I have sometimes
dwelt long upon the same argument, and expressed it different ways,
with a quite different design. I pretend not to publish this Essay for the
information of men of large thoughts and quick apprehensions; to such
masters of knowledge I profess myself a scholar, and therefore warn
them beforehand not to expect anything here, but what, being spun out
of my own coarse thoughts, is fitted to men of my own size, to whom,
perhaps, it will not be unacceptable that I have taken some pains to
make plain and familiar to their thoughts some truths which established
prejudice, or the abstractedness of the ideas themselves, might render
difficult. Some objects had need be turned on every side; and when the
notion is new, as I confess some of these are to me; or out of the
ordinary road, as I suspect they will appear to others, it is not one
simple view of it that will gain it admittance into every understanding,
or fix it there with a clear and lasting impression. There are few, I
believe, who have not observed in themselves or others, that what in
one way of proposing was very obscure, another way of expressing it
has made very clear and intelligible; though afterwards the mind found
little difference in the phrases, and wondered why one failed to be

understood more than the other. But everything does not hit alike upon
every man's imagination. We have our understandings no less different
than our palates; and he that thinks the same truth shall be equally
relished by every one in the same dress, may as well hope to feast every
one with the same sort of cookery: the meat may be the same, and the
nourishment good, yet every one not be able to receive it with that
seasoning; and it must be dressed another way, if you will have it go
down with some, even of strong constitutions. The truth is, those who
advised me to publish it, advised me, for this reason, to publish it as it
is: and since I have been brought to let it go abroad, I desire it should
be understood by whoever gives himself the pains to read it. I have so
little affection 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 knowing 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 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