I would observe farther, that a person who means to serve the cause of science effectually, must hazard his own reputation so far as to risk even _mistakes_ in things of less moment. Among a multiplicity of new objects, and new relations, some will necessarily pass without sufficient attention; but if a man be not mistaken in the principal objects of his pursuits, he has no occasion to distress himself about lesser things. In the progress of his inquiries he will generally be able to rectify his own mistakes; or if little and envious souls should take a malignant pleasure in detecting them for him, and endeavouring to expose him, he is not worthy of the name of a philosopher, if he has not strength of mind sufficient to enable him not to be disturbed at it. He who does not foolishly affect to be above the failings of humanity, will not be mortified when it is proved that he is but a man. In this work, as well as in all my other philosophical writings, I have made it a rule not to conceal the _real views_ with which I have made experiments; because though, by following a contrary maxim, I might have acquired a character of greater sagacity, I think that two very good ends are answered by the method that I have adopted. For it both tends to make a narrative of a course of experiments more interesting, and likewise encourages other adventurers in experimental philosophy; shewing them that, by pursuing even false lights, real and important truths may be discovered, and that in seeking one thing we often find another. In some respects, indeed, this method makes the narrative _longer_, but it is by making it less tedious; and in other respects I have written much more concisely than is usual with those who publish accounts of their experiments. In this treatise the reader will often find the result of long processes expressed in a few lines, and of many such in a single paragraph; each of which, if I had, with the usual parade, described it at large (explaining first the _preparation_, then reciting the _experiment_ itself, with the _result_ of it, and lastly making suitable _reflections_) would have made as many sections or chapters, and have swelled my book to a pompous and respectable size. But I have the pleasure to think that those philosophers who have but little time to spare for _reading_, which is always the case with those who _do_ much themselves, will thank me for not keeping them too long from their own pursuits; and that they will find rather more in the volume, than the appearance of it promises.