been an unequal one perhaps, in respect of the measure of my own powers.  As it is however,—­my object being to open a new way for the understanding, a way by them untried and unknown,—­the case is altered; party zeal and emulation are at an end; and I appear merely as a guide to point out the road; an office of small authority, and depending more upon a kind of luck than upon any ability or excellency.  And thus much relates to the persons only.  The other point of which I would have men reminded relates to the matter itself.

Be it remembered then that I am far from wishing to interfere with the philosophy which now flourishes, or with any other philosophy more correct and complete than this which has been or may hereafter be propounded.  For I do not object to the use of this received philosophy, or others like it, for supplying matter for disputations or ornaments for discourse,—­for the professor’s lecture and for the business of life.  Nay more, I declare openly that for these uses the philosophy which I bring forward will not be much available.  It does not lie in the way.  It cannot be caught up in passage.  It does not flatter the understanding by conformity with preconceived notions.  Nor will it come down to the apprehension of the vulgar except by its utility and effects.

Let there be therefore (and may it be for the benefit of both) two streams and two dispensations of knowledge; and in like manner two tribes or kindreds of students in philosophy—­tribes not hostile or alien to each other, but bound together by mutual services;—­let there in short be one method for the cultivation, another for the invention, of knowledge.

And for those who prefer the former, either from hurry or from considerations of business or for want of mental power to take in and embrace the other (which must needs be most men’s case), I wish that they may succeed to their desire in what they are about, and obtain what they are pursuing.  But if any man there be who, not content to rest in and use the knowledge which has already been discovered, aspires to penetrate further; to overcome, not an adversary in argument, but nature in action; to seek, not pretty and probable conjectures, but certain and demonstrable knowledge;—­I invite all such to join themselves, as true sons of knowledge, with me, that passing by the outer courts of nature, which numbers have trodden, we may find a way at length into her inner chambers.  And to make my meaning clearer and to familiarise the thing by giving it a name, I have chosen to call one of these methods or ways Anticipation of the Mind, the other Interpretation of Nature.