But although it might be my
part to write a preface of this nature, seeing I ought to know those
particulars better than any other person, I cannot nevertheless
prevail upon myself to do anything more than merely to give a
summary of the chief points that fall, as I think, to be discussed
in it: and I leave it to your discretion to present to the public
such part of them as you shall judge proper.
I should have desired, in the first place, to explain in it what
philosophy is, by commencing with the most common matters, as, for
example, that the word PHILOSOPHY signifies the study of wisdom, and
that by wisdom is to be understood not merely prudence in the
management of affairs, but a perfect knowledge of all that man can
know, as well for the conduct of his life as for the preservation of
his health and the discovery of all the arts, and that knowledge to
subserve these ends must necessarily be deduced from first causes;
so that in order to study the acquisition of it (which is properly
called philosophizing), we must commence with the investigation of
those first causes which are called PRINCIPLES.
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