us:  a ridiculous fruit of learning, that Socrates so pleasantly discusses against Euthydemus.  I have seen books made of things that were never either studied or understood; the author committing to several of his learned friends the examination of this and t’other matter to compile it, contenting himself, for his share, with having projected the design, and by his industry to have tied together this faggot of unknown provisions; the ink and paper, at least, are his.  This is to buy or borrow a book, and not to make one; ’tis to show men not that he can make a book, but that, whereof they may be in doubt, he cannot make one.  A president, where I was, boasted that he had amassed together two hundred and odd commonplaces in one of his judgments; in telling which, he deprived himself of the glory he had got by it:  in my opinion, a pusillanimous and absurd vanity for such a subject and such a person.  I do the contrary; and amongst so many borrowed things, am glad if I can steal one, disguising and altering it for some new service; at the hazard of having it said that ’tis for want of understanding its natural use; I give it some particular touch of my own hand, to the end it may not be so absolutely foreign.  These set their thefts in show and value themselves upon them, and so have more credit with the laws than I have:  we naturalists I think that there is a great and incomparable preference in the honour of invention over that of allegation.

If I would have spoken by learning, I had spoken sooner; I had written of the time nearer to my studies, when I had more wit and better memory, and should sooner have trusted to the vigour of that age than of this, would I have made a business of writing.  And what if this gracious favour —­[His acquaintance with Mademoiselle de Gournay.]—­which Fortune has lately offered me upon the account of this work, had befallen me in that time of my life, instead of this, wherein ’tis equally desirable to possess, soon to be lost!  Two of my acquaintance, great men in this faculty, have, in my opinion, lost half, in refusing to publish at forty years old, that they might stay till threescore.  Maturity has its defects as well as green years, and worse; and old age is as unfit for this kind of business as any other.  He who commits his decrepitude to the press plays the fool if he think to squeeze anything out thence that does not relish of dreaming, dotage, and drivelling; the mind grows costive and thick in growing old.  I deliver my ignorance in pomp and state, and my learning meagrely and poorly; this accidentally and accessorily, that principally and expressly; and write specifically of nothing but nothing, nor of any science but of that inscience.  I have chosen a time when my life, which I am to give an account of, lies wholly before me; what remains has more to do with death; and of my death itself, should I find it a prating death, as others do, I would willingly give an account at my departure.