Three Books of Occult Philosophy

EPISTOLA.

[this] matter, which no one until now has attempted to restore. Nevertheless, these works of mine are not dedicated to you because they are worthy of you, but so that they may open a path for me to your goodwill. I ask therefore, if it is not improper, that they might find some favor with you. I shall offer every prayer for your prosperity if these studies of my youth come to public notice under the protection of your greatness; and if—with envy driven away—their memory might endure by right of eternity to the benefit of my own good conscience, since many things in them seem even to my older self to be both highly useful and necessary to be known.

You have here, therefore, a work not only of my youth, but also of my present age; for I have corrected many errors of that youthful work, inserted many things in various places, and expanded it with many chapters, which can easily be discovered from the unevenness of the prose itself Agrippa is admitting that the writing style is inconsistent because he updated a manuscript written in his early twenties with more sophisticated thoughts from his middle age.,