I proceed now to the sixth [i.e. seventh] and difficultest part of my task, which is to show that the most general and current effata and axioms concerning nature that are wont to be employed in the writings of philosophers may have a fair account given of them, agreeably to the doctrine I have hitherto proposed, though these axioms do some of them suppose, and others seem strongly to support, the received notion of nature. To clear the way for the ensuing explications, I must desire you to recall to mind the two cautions I have formerly offered you (in the fifth section), wherewith I would have the common doctrine about the ends or designs of nature to be understood or limited. And therefore I shall not here repeat what I there said, but only add in two words: that if those and some few other such things had been observed and duly considered, they might perhaps have prevented much of the obscurity and some of the errors that relate to the notion of nature.

I hope you have not forgot that the design of this paper was to examine the vulgar notion of nature, not to establish a new one of my own.