First Sentence

"Believing that the human understanding creates difficulties for itself, and does not put to sober and sensible use the true means of help that are in man's power; from which manifold ignorance of things has come, and from that ignorance numberless ills; he thought that every effort should be made, by whatever means, to restore to its original condition, or at least to improve, that commerce between Mind and Things (to which almost nothing on earth, or at least nothing that is of the earth, can compare)."