[Introductory Note by Du Pont de Nemours, in the Éphémérides for Nov. 1769, p. 12.]
We have long begged the Author of the following work to let us have it to enrich our Periodical. He was never ready to consent, because he had not given the last touch to the exposition of his reflections; because, throwing them on paper, three years ago, very hastily and for a particular purpose, he approaches the subject in a manner which seems to him not sufficiently direct; because, as a consequence, he has been obliged sometimes to repeat himself; and because it seems to him that thereby he gives occasion to objections which could easily have been forestalled if the subjects had been presented in a more systematic fashion. It is the Author himself who has so severely criticised his performance, whenever we have spoken to him about it; and we doubt not that he would really have been quite capable of giving it a higher degree of perfection. Yet as important occupations, from which he cannot be released, leave him too little leisure for it to be possible for him to reckon upon the time which would be necessary to arrive at what would satisfy himself; and since, even in the condition in which the reflections now are, they seem to us to compose a Work that is very interesting, very fruitful, and very worthy of the important subject of which they treat; we have insisted upon his giving us permission to place them in our Collection; and he has finally granted to friendship the sacrifice he had always refused to our arguments.
