( xxxvi )
to beg the Reader’s pardon for presenting him with a small book. But will not some object, To what good purpose can it serve to revive a heap of puerile Fables and Opinions, which time hath so justly devoted to oblivion? Why take so much trouble to dispel the gloom which envelopes the infant state of nations? What have we to do with any but our own cotemporaries? much less with barbarous manners, which have no sort of connection with our own, and which we shall happily never see revive again? This is the language we now often hear. The major part of mankind, confined in their views, and averse to labour, would fain persuade themselves that whatever they are ignorant of is useless, and that no additions can be made to the stock of knowledge already acquired. But this is a stock which diminishes whenever it ceases to increase. The same reason which prompts us to neglect the acquisition of new knowledge, leads us to forget what we have before attained. The less the mind is accustomed to exercise its faculties, the less it compares objects, and discovers the relation they bear to each other. Thus it loses that strength and accuracy of discernment which are its best preservatives from error. To think of confining our studies to what one may call meer necessary truths, is to expose one’s self
