The truth is, the Science of Nature has been already too long made only a
work of the _Brain_ and the _Fancy_: It is now high time that it should
return to the plainness and soundness of _Observations_ on _material_ and
_obvious_ things. It is said of great Empires, That _the best way to
preserve them from decay, is to bring them back to the first Principles,
and Arts, on which they did begin_. The same is undoubtedly true in
Philosophy, that by wandring far away into _invisible Notions_, has almost
quite destroy'd it self, and it can never be recovered, or continued, but
by returning into the same _sensible paths_, in which it did at first
proceed.
If therefore the Reader expects from me any infallible Deductions, or
certainty of _Axioms_, I am to say for my self, that those stronger Works
of Wit and Imagination are above my weak Abilities; or if they had not been
so, I would not have made use of them in this present Subject before me:
Whenever he finds that I have ventur'd at any small Conjectures, at the
causes of the things that I have observed, I beseech him to look, upon them
only as _doubtful Problems_, and _uncertain ghesses_, and not as
unquestionable Conclusions, or matters of unconfutable Science; I have
produced nothing here, with intent to bind his understanding to an
_implicit_ consent; I am so far from that, that I desire him, not
absolutely to rely upon these Observations of my eyes, if he finds them
contradicted by the future Ocular Experiments of other and impartial
Discoverers.
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