these matters; and I was beginning to revise it, with the view to put it
into the hands of a printer, when I learned that persons to whom I greatly
defer, and whose authority over my actions is hardly less influential than
is my own reason over my thoughts, had condemned a certain doctrine in
physics, published a short time previously by another individual to which
I will not say that I adhered, but only that, previously to their censure
I had observed in it nothing which I could imagine to be prejudicial
either to religion or to the state, and nothing therefore which would have
prevented me from giving expression to it in writing, if reason had
persuaded me of its truth; and this led me to fear lest among my own
doctrines likewise some one might be found in which I had departed from
the truth, notwithstanding the great care I have always taken not to
accord belief to new opinions of which I had not the most certain
demonstrations, and not to give expression to aught that might tend to the
hurt of any one. This has been sufficient to make me alter my purpose of
publishing them; for although the reasons by which I had been induced to
take this resolution were very strong, yet my inclination, which has
always been hostile to writing books, enabled me immediately to discover
other considerations sufficient to excuse me for not undertaking the task.
And these reasons, on one side and the other, are such, that not only is
it in some measure my interest here to state them, but that of the public,
perhaps, to know them.

I have never made much account of what has proceeded from my own mind; and
so long as I gathered no other advantage from the method I employ beyond
satisfying myself on some difficulties belonging to the speculative
sciences, or endeavoring to regulate my actions according to the
principles it taught me, I never thought myself bound to publish anything
respecting it. For in what regards manners, every one is so full of his
own wisdom, that there might be found as many reformers as heads, if any