First it falls out
fortunately as I think for the allaying of contradictions and
heart-burnings, that the honour and reverence due to the ancients
remains untouched and undiminished; while I may carry out my designs
and at the same time reap the fruit of my modesty. For if I should
profess that I, going the same road as the ancients, have something
better to produce, there must needs have been some comparison or
rivalry between us (not to be avoided by any art of words) in respect
of excellency or ability of wit; and though in this there would be
nothing unlawful or new (for if there be anything misapprehended by
them, or falsely laid down, why may not I, using a liberty common
to all, take exception to it?) yet the contest, however just and
allowable, would have 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