to

if they can add a price to what they go along with, proportionable to their own greatnefs, I can with confidence brag, I here make your Lordship the richest prefent you ever received. This I am fure, I am under the greatest obligation to feek all occafions to acknowledge a long train of favours; favours, though great and important in themselves, yet made much more fo by the forwardness, concern, and kindness, and other obliging circumftances, that never failed accompany them. To all this, you are pleased to add that which gives yet more weight and relifh to all the rest: You vouchsafe to continue me in fome degrees of your efteem, and allow me a place in your good thoughts, I had almost said friendfhip. This, my Lord, your words and actions fo constantly show on all occafions, even to others when I am abfent, that it is not vanity in me to mention what every body knows: But it would be want of good manners, not to acknowledge what fo many are witneffes of, and every day tell me, I am indebted to your Lordship for. I wish they could as easily affift my gratitude, as they convince me of the great and growing engagements it has to your Lordship. This, I am fure, I thould write of the Understanding without having any, if I were not extremely fenfible of them, and did not lay hold on this opportunity to teftify to the world, how much I am obliged to be, and how much I am,

THE EPISTLE TO THE READER.

I

READER,

HERE put into thy hands, what has been the diverfion of fome of my idle and heavy hours: If it has the good luck to prove fo of any of thine, and thou haft but half fo much pleasure in reading, as I had in writing it, thou wilt as little think thy money, as I do my pains, ill bestowed. Mistake not this, for a commendation of my work; nor conclude, because I was pleafed with the doing of it, that therefore I am fondly taken with it now it is done. He that hawks at larks and fparrows, has no lefs fport, though a much lefs confiderable quarry, than he that flies at nobler game: And he is little acquainted with the subject of this treatise, the UNDERSTANDING, who does not know, that as it is the most elevated faculty of the foul, so it is employed with a greater and more conftant delight, than any of the other. Its fearches after truth, are a fort of hawking and hunting, wherein the very purfuit makes a great part of the pleafure. Every step the mind takes in its progrefs towards knowledge, makes fome discovery, which is not only new, but the best too, for the time at least.

For the Understanding, like the eye, judging of objects only by its own fight, cannot but be pleafed with what it difcovers, having lefs regret for what has escaped it, because it is unknown. Thus he who has raised himself above the alms-bafket, and not content to live lazily on scraps of begged opinions, fets his own thoughts on work to find and follow truth (whatever he lights on), not miss the hunter's fatisfaction; every moment of his purfuit will reward his pains with fome delight, and he will have reason to think his time not ill spent, even when he cannot much boaft of any great acquifition.

This, Reader, is the entertainment of those who let loose their own thoughts, and follow them in writing; which thou oughtest not to envy them, fince they afford thee an opportunity of the like diverfion, if thou wilt make use of thy own thoughts in reading. It is to them, if they are thy own, that I refer myself: But if they are taken upon truft from others, it is no great matter what they are; they not following truth, but fome meaner confideration. And it is not worth while to be concerned, what he says or thinks, who fays or thinks only as he is directed by another. If thou judgeft for thyself, I know thou wilt judge candidly; and then I fhall not be harmed or offended, whatever be thy cenfure. For though it be certain, that there is nothing in this treatise, of the truth whereof I am not fully perfuaded; yet I confider myself as liable to mistakes, as I can think thee; and know, that this book must stand or fall with thee, not by any opinion I have of it, but thy own. If thou findeft little in it new or instructive to thee, thou art not to blame me for it. It was not meant for those that had already mastered this fubject, and made a thorough acquaintance with their own understandings; but for my own information, and the fatisfaction of a few friends, who acknowledged themselves not to have fufficiently confidered it. Were it fit to trouble thee with the hiftory of this Effay, I fhould tell thee, that five or fix friends meeting at my chamber, and difcourfing, on a fubject very remote from this, found themselves quickly at a ftand, by the difficulties that rose on every fide. After we had a while puzzled ourselves, without coming any nearer a refolution of those doubts which perplexed us, it came into my thoughts, that we took a wrong courfe; and that before we fet ourselves upon inquiries of that nature, it was neceffary 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 affented; and thereupon it was agreed, that this fhould be our firft inquiry. Some hafty and undigefted thoughts, on a subject I had never before confidered, which I fet down against our

next meeting, gave the first entrance into this discourse; which having been thus begun by chance, was continued by entreaty, written by incoherent parcels, and, after long intervals of neglect, refumed again, as my humour or occafions permitted, and at laft, in a retirement, where an attendance on my health gave me leifure, it was brought into that order thou now feest it. This discontinued way of writing may have occafioned, befides others, two contrary faults, viz. that too little and too much may be faid in it. If thou findest any thing wanting, I fhall be glad that what I have writ gives thee any defire that I fhould have gone farther: If it seems too much to thee, thou must blame the subject; for when I first put pen to paper, I thought all I should have to fay on this matter would have been contained in one sheet of paper; but the farther I went, the larger profpect I had; new difcoveries led me still on, and fo it grew infenfibly to the bulk it now appears in. I will not deny but poffibly it might be reduced to a narrower compass than it is, and that fome 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 confefs the truth, I am now too lazy, or too busy to make it shorter.

I am not ignorant how little I herein confult my own reputation when I knowingly let it go with a fault, fo apt to disgust the most judicious, who are always the niceft readers; but they who know floth is apt to content itself with any excufe, 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 fame notion having different respects, may be convenient or neceffary to prove or illuftrate feveral parts of the fame difcourfe, and that fo it has happened in many parts of this; but waving that, I fhall frankly avow, that I have fometimes dwelt long upon the fame argument, and expreffed it different ways, with a quite different defign. I pretend not to publish this Effay for the information of men of large thoughts and quick apprehenfions; to fuch masters of knowledge I profefs myself a fcholar, and