Men's principles, notions, and relishes are so different, that it is hard to find a book which pleases or displeases all men.

I acknowledge the age we live in is not the least knowing, and therefore not the most easy to be satisfied.
If I have not the good luck to please, yet nobody ought to be offended with me.

I plainly tell all my readers, except half a dozen, this Treatise was not at first intended for them; and therefore they need not be at the trouble to be of that number.

But yet if any one thinks fit to be angry and rail at it, he may do it securely, for I shall find some better way of spending my time than in such kind of conversation.

I shall always have the satisfaction to have aimed sincerely at truth and usefulness, though in one of the meanest ways.