“For myself, I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for the study of Truth; as having a mind nimble and versatile enough to catch the resemblances of things (which is the chief point), and at the same time steady enough to fix and distinguish their subtler differences; as being gifted by nature with desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to reconsider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and as being a man that neither affects what is new nor admires what is old, and that hates every kind of imposture.  So I thought my nature had a kind of familiarity and relationship with Truth.

“Nevertheless, because my birth and education had seasoned me in business of State; and because opinions (so young as I was) would sometimes stagger me; and because I thought that a man’s own country has some special claims upon him more than the rest of the world; and because I hoped that, if I rose to any place of honour in the State, I should have a larger command of industry and ability to help me in my work—­for these reasons I both applied myself to acquire the arts of civil life, and commended my service, so far as in modesty and honesty I might, to the favour of such friends as had any influence.  In which also I had another motive:  for I felt that those things I have spoken of—­be they great or small—­reach no further than the condition and culture of this mortal life; and I was not without hope (the condition of religion being at that time not very prosperous) that if I came to hold office in the State, I might get something done too for the good of men’s souls.  When I found, however, that my zeal was mistaken for ambition, and my life had already readied the turning-point, and my breaking health reminded me how ill I could afford to be so slow, and I reflected, moreover, that in leaving undone the good that I could do by myself alone, and applying myself to that which could not be done without the help and consent of others, I was by no means discharging the duty that lay upon me—­I put all those thoughts aside, and (in pursuance of my old determination) betook myself wholly to this work.  Nor am I discouraged from it because I see signs in the times of the decline and overthrow of that knowledge and erudition which is now in use.  Not that I apprehend any more barbarian invasions (unless possibly the Spanish empire should recover its strength, and having crushed other nations by arms should itself sink under its own weight); but the civil wars which may be expected, I think (judging from certain fashions which have come in of late), to spread through many countries—­together with the malignity of sects, and those compendious artifices and devices which have crept into the place of solid erudition—­seem to portend for literature and the sciences a tempest not less fatal, and one against which the Printing-office will be no effectual security.  And no doubt but