An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. | Page 5

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, that they are but the
covers of ignorance, and hindrance of true knowledge. To break in
upon the sanctuary of vanity and ignorance will be, I suppose, some
service to human understanding; though so few are apt to think they
deceive or are deceived in the use of words; or that the language of the
sect they are of has any faults in it which ought to be examined or
corrected, that I hope I shall be pardoned if I have in the Third Book
dwelt long on this subject, and endeavoured to make it so plain, that
neither the inveterateness of the mischief, nor the prevalency 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 in 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 New 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 further
confirmation 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. xxi.
What I had there written concerning Liberty and the Will, I thought
deserved as accurate a view as I am 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 I formerly had concerning
that which gives the last determination to the Will