First Sentence

"To those who love learning and mankind, and who are more ambitious to distinguish themselves as men, than as disputants, it is a matter of humiliation and regret, that names and things have so oft been mistaken for each other; that so much of the philosopher's time must be employed in ascertaining the signification of words; and that so many doctrines, of high reputation, and of ancient date, when traced to their first principles, have been found to terminate in verbal ambiguity."