I should not wonder to see men of candour, as well as good sense, find fault with the manner, in which I have chose to publish these thoughts of mine to the world: There certainly is something in it, which I confess I do not know how to justify to my own satisfaction. That such a man as Cleomenes, having met with a book agreeable to his own sentiments, should desire to be acquainted with the author of it, has nothing in it that is improbable or unseemly; but then it will be objected, that, whoever the interlocutors are, it was I myself who wrote the dialogues; and that it is contrary to all decency, that a man should proclaim concerning his own work, all that a friend of his, perhaps, might be allowed to say: this is true; and the best answer which I think can be made to it, is, that such an impartial man, and such a lover of truth, as Cleomenes is represented to be, would be as cautious in speaking of his friend's merit, as he would be of his own. It might be urged likewise, that when a man professes himself to be an author's friend, and exactly to entertain the same sentiments with another, it must naturally put every reader upon his guard, and render him as suspicious and distrustful of such a man, as he would be of the author himself. But how good soever the excuses are, that might be made for this manner of writing, I would never have ventured upon it, if I had not liked it in the famous Gassendus, who, by the help of several dialogues and a friend, who is the chief personage in them, has not only explained and illustrated his system, but likewise refuted his adversaries: him I have followed, and I hope the reader will find, that whatever opportunity I have had by this means, of speaking well of myself indirectly, I had no design to make that, or any other ill use of it.