2. Design.
This, therefore, being my purpose--to inquire into the original, certainty, and extent of human
knowledge, together with the grounds and degrees of belief, opinion, and assent;--I shall not at present meddle
with the physical consideration of the mind; or trouble myself to examine wherein its essence consists; or by what
motions of our spirits or alterations of our bodies we come to have any sensation by our organs, or any ideas in
our understandings; and whether those ideas do in their formation, any or all of them, depend on matter or not.
These are speculations which, however curious and entertaining, I shall decline, as lying out of my way in the
design I am now upon. It shall suffice to my present purpose, to consider the discerning faculties of a man, as they
are employed about the objects which they have to do with. And I shall imagine I have not wholly misemployed
myself in the thoughts I shall have on this occasion, if, in this historical, plain method, I can give any account of
the ways whereby our understandings come to attain those notions of things we have; and can set down any
measures of the certainty of our knowledge; or the grounds of those persuasions which are to be found amongst
men, so various, different, and wholly contradictory; and yet asserted somewhere or other with such assurance
and confidence, that he that shall take a view of the opinions of mankind, observe their opposition, and at the
same time consider the fondness and devotion wherewith they are embraced, the resolution and eagerness
wherewith they are maintained, may perhaps have reason to suspect, that either there is no such thing as truth at
all, or that mankind hath no sufficient means to attain a certain knowledge of it.
