'In fine, to return to myself, the only things by which _I_ esteem _myself_ to be something, is _that wherein never any man_ thought himself to be defective. _My recommendation is vulgar and common_; for whoever thought _he_ wanted sense. It would be a _proposition that would imply a contradiction in itself_; [in such subtleties thickly studding this popular work, the clues which link it with other works of this kind are found--the clues to a new _practical human philosophy_.] 'Tis a disease that never is where it is discerned; 'tis tenacious and strong; _but the first ray of the patient's sight_ does nevertheless pierce it through and disperse it, as the beams of the sun do a thick mist: to _accuse one's self_, would be to _excuse one's self_ in this case; and to _condemn_, to _absolve_. There never was porter, or silly girl, that did not think they had sense enough for their need. The reasons that proceed from the natural arguing of others, we think that if we had turned our thoughts that way, we should ourselves have found it out as well as they. _Knowledge, style_, and such parts as we see in other works, we are readily aware if they excel our own; but for the simple products of the _understanding_, every one thinks he could have found out the like, and is hardly sensible of the weight and difficulty, unless--and then with much ado--in an extreme and incomparable distance; _and whoever should be able clearly to discern_ the height of another's judgment, would be also able _to raise his own to the same pitch_; so that this is a sort of exercise, from which a man is to expect very little praise, a kind of composition of small repute. _And, besides, for whom do you write_?'--for he is merely meeting this common sense. His object is merely to make his reader confess, 'That was just what I was about to say, it was just my thought; and if I did not express it so, it was only for want of language;'--'for whom do you write? _The learned_, to whom the authority appertains of judging books, know no other value but that of learning, and allow of no other process of wit but that of erudition and art. If you have mistaken one of the Scipios for another, what is all the rest you have to say worth? Whoever is ignorant of Aristotle, according to their rule, is in some sort ignorant of himself. _Heavy and vulgar souls_ cannot discern the grace of a high and unfettered style. Now these two sorts of men make the _world_. The _third sort_, into whose hands you fall, of souls that are regular, and strong of themselves, is so rare, that it _justly_ has neither _name nor place amongst us_, and it is pretty well time lost to aspire to it, or to endeavour to please it.' He will not content himself with pleasing the few. He wishes to _move_ the world, and its approbation is a secondary question with him.