26. Conclusion.
To show how the understanding proceeds herein is the design of the following Discourse; which I
shall proceed to when I have first premised, that hitherto,--to clear my way to those foundations which I conceive
are the only true ones, whereon to establish those notions we can have of our own knowledge,--it hath been
necessary for me to give an account of the reasons I had to doubt of innate principles. And since the arguments
which are against them do, some of them, rise from common received opinions, I have been forced to take several
things for granted; which is hardly avoidable to any one, whose task is to show the falsehood or improbability of
any tenet;--it happening in controversial discourses as it does in assaulting of towns; where, if the ground be but
firm whereon the batteries are erected, there is no further inquiry of whom it is borrowed, nor whom it belongs to,
so it affords but a fit rise for the present purpose. But in the future part of this Discourse, designing to raise an
edifice uniform and consistent with itself, as far as my own experience and observation will assist me, I hope to
erect it on such a basis that I shall not need to shore it up with props and buttresses, leaning on borrowed or
begged foundations: or at least, if mine prove a castle in the air, I will endeavour it shall be all of a piece and hang
together. Wherein I warn the reader not to expect undeniable cogent demonstrations, unless I may be allowed the
privilege, not seldom assumed by others, to take my principles for granted; and then, I doubt not, but I can
demonstrate too. All that I shall say for the principles I proceed on is, that I can only appeal to men's own
unprejudiced experience and observation whether they be true or not; and this is enough for a man who professes
no more than to lay down candidly and freely his own conjectures, concerning a subject lying somewhat in the
dark, without any other design than an unbiased inquiry after truth.
