An essay concerning humane understanding ... / written by John Locke.

  • Locke, John, 1632-1704.
Date:
1695
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay concerning humane understanding ... / written by John Locke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    pies, Notions, and Reliflies are fo different, that it is hard To find a Book which pleafes or difpleafes all Men. I acknowledge the Age we live in, is not the leaft knowing, and therefore not the moil eafie to be fatisfied. If I have not the good luck to pleafe, yet no body ought to be offended with me. I plainly tell all my Readers, except half a dozen, this Treatife was not at firfi: 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 fecurely : For 1 ffiall find fome better way of fpending my time, than in fuch kind of Converfation. I fhall always have the fatisfa<5fion to have aimed fincerelyat Truth and Ufefulnefs, though in one of the meaneft ways. The Common-wealth of Learning, is not at this time without Mafter-Builders, whofe mighty Defigns, in advancing the Sciences, will leave lafting Monuments to the Admiration of Pofterity ; but every one muff: not hope fo be a Boyle, or a Sydenham *, and in an Age that produces fuch Mafters, as the Great-Huygenius, and the incomparable Mr. Newton, with fome other of that Strain ; 3tis Ambition enough to be employed as an Under-Labourer in clearing the Ground a little, and removing fome of the Rubbiffi, that lies in the way to Knowledge; which certainly had been very much more advanced in the World, if the endeavours of ingenious and induftrious Men had not been much cumbred with the learn¬ ed but frivolous ufe of uncouth, affe&ed, or unintelligible Terms, introduced into the Sciences, and there made an Art of, to that Degree, that Philofophy, which is nothing but the true Knowledge of Things, was thought unfit, or tinea pable to be brought into well-bred Company, and polite Converfation. Vague and insignificant Forms of Speech, and abufe of Lan¬ guage, have fo long pafied for Myfferies of Science And hard or mifapplyd Words, with little or no meaning, have, by Preicription, fuch a Right to be miftaken for deep Learning, and height of Speculation, that it will not beeafieto perfwade, either thofe who fpeak, or thofe who hear them, that they are but the Covers of Ignorance, and hindrance of true Know¬ ledge. To break in upon this San&uary of Vanity and Ig¬ norance , will be, I fuppofe, fome Service to Humane Underftanding : Though fo few are apt to think, they deceive, or are deceived in the ufe of Words *, or that the Language of the Seft they are of, has any Faults in it, which ought to be examined or correfted, that I hope I ffiall be par¬ don’d, if I have in the Third Book dwelt long on this Subjeft ; and endeavoured to make it io plain, that neither the inveterate- nefs