Truth is one, and the work which expounds it is an imposing and durable edifice.

Error is multiple, and of ephemereal nature.

The work which combats it, cannot bear in itself a principle of greatness or of durability.
But if power, and perhaps opportunity, have been wanting to me, to enable me to proceed in the manner of Laplace and of Say, I still cannot but believe that the mode adopted by me has also its modest usefulness.
It appears to me likewise to be well suited to the wants of the age, and to the broken moments which it is now the habit to snatch for study.
A treatise has without doubt an incontestable superiority.

But it requires to be read, meditated, and understood.

It addresses itself to the select few.