willing to magnify his labours, and procure veneration to his studies by
involution and obscurity. But every art is obscure to those that have
not learned it: this uncertainty of terms, and commixture of ideas, is
well known to those who have joined philosophy with grammar; and, if I
have not expressed them very clearly, it must be remembered that I am
speaking of that which words are insufficient to explain.

The original sense of words is often driven out of use by their
metaphorical acceptations, yet must be inserted for the sake of a
regular origination. Thus I know not whether _ardour_ is used for
_material heat_, or whether _flagrant_, in English, ever signifies the
same with _burning_; yet such are the primitive ideas of these words,
which are, therefore, set first, though without examples, that the
figurative senses may be commodiously deduced.

Such is the exuberance of signification which many words have obtained,
that it was scarcely possible to collect all their senses; sometimes the
meaning of derivatives must be sought in the mother term, and sometimes
deficient explanations of the primitive may be supplied in the train of
derivation. In any case of doubt or difficulty, it will be always proper
to examine all the words of the same race; for some words are slightly
passed over to avoid repetition; some admitted easier and clearer
explanation than others; and all will be better understood, as they are
considered in greater variety of structures and relations.

All the interpretations of words are not written with the same skill, or
the same happiness: things, equally easy in themselves, are not all
equally easy to any single mind. Every writer of a long work commits
errours, where there appears neither ambiguity to mislead, nor obscurity
to confound him: and, in a search like this, many felicities of