6

INTRODUCTION.

wrong way ; no diligence or art, we can use, while wefollow so erroneous a course, will ever ‘bring us to our de-signed end. And doubtless it cannot prove otherwise; forin this spacious field of nature, is once we forsake the truepath, we shall immediately lose our selves, and must forever wander with uncertainty.

6 . T h e impossibility of succeeding in so faulty a methodos philosophizing his Lordship endeavours to prove from themany false notions and prejudices, to which the mind of manis exposed a . And fince this judicious writer apprehends, thatmen are so exceeding liable to fall into these wrong tracts ofthinking, as to incur great danger of being misted by them,even while they enter on the true course in pursuit of na-ture b ; I trust, I shall be excused, if, by insisting a little par-ticularly upon this argument, I endeavour to remove what-ever prejudice of this kind, might possibly entangle the mindof any of my readers.

7 . His Lordship has reduced these prejudices and falsemodes of conception under four distinct heads c .

8. T h e first head contains such, as we are subject to fromthe very condition os humanity, through the weakness bothof our senses, and of the faculties of the mind d ; seeing, asthis author well observes, the fubtilty of nature far exceedsthe greatest fubtilty of our senses or acutest reasonings e . One

1 Aph. 38.b Ibid.c A P»- 39 -

d Aph. 41.e Aph. 10, 2 4.

of