[Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books by Charles W. Eliot]@TWC D-Link bookPrefaces and Prologues to Famous Books PREFACE 6/6
And to make my meaning clearer and to familiarise the thing by giving it a name, I have chosen to call one of these methods or ways _Anticipation of the Mind_, the other _Interpretation of Nature_. Moreover I have one request to make.
I have on my own part made it my care and study that the things which I shall propound should not only be true, but should also be presented to men's minds, how strangely soever preoccupied and obstructed, in a manner not harsh or unpleasant.
It is but reasonable however (especially in so great a restoration of learning and knowledge) that I should claim of men one favour in return; which is this; If any one would form an opinion or judgment either out of his own observation, or out of the crowd of authorities, or out of the forms of demonstration (which have now acquired a sanction like that of judicial laws), concerning these speculations of mine, let him not hope that he can do it in passage or by the by; but let him examine the thing thoroughly; let him make some little trial for himself of the way which I describe and lay out; let him familiarise his thoughts with that subtlety of nature to which experience bears witness; let him correct by seasonable patience and due delay the depraved and deep-rooted habits of his mind; and when all this is done and he has begun to be his own master, let him (if he will) use his own judgment..
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