Natural Magic

The text begins mid-sentence, continuing from the previous page's discussion of the writings of the ancients. ...indeed, those of the first rank appear in such a way that they can be read not only with difficult experimentation, but not even without frequent laughter. Furthermore, we omit many who, while they transmit wonderful things to be known by posterity and promise mountains of gold, write something different from what they actually believed. Hence, those endowed with a more sublime talent and more eager for learning are held back by the longest interval of time; because they distrust that they can attain those things, and they realize they have wasted their labor and oil original: "operam & oleum contriuiſſe," a Latin proverb meaning to waste one's time, effort, and money on a fruitless task, referring to the oil burned in a lamp while working late., they are driven by despair and regret it too late. Others, then, made wise by the danger of another, learn to hate these things before they even know them.

We have divided these Secrets into their own classes, so that everyone may have what pleases them. Finally, I would have gladly passed over offending your ears if I did not care to refute the slanders of detractors and the envious, who tear me apart quite immodestly, thinking me to be a Magician and a poisoner original: "Magum veneficum." In the 16th century, "veneficus" referred to a sorcerer who specifically used harmful potions or "black" magic., a name I have dreaded and thought vain from my tenderest years original: "à teneris vnguiculis," literally "from my tender fingernails," a Latin idiom meaning from earliest childhood..

For my part, I have always considered myself a man, subject to fallacies and errors; I have entreated all the most learned men to refute me if I have interpreted anything unfaithfully. But what I always dreaded has happened: I have fallen among a most vile and hated kind of men, who snatch up a sordid little glory and a vulgar, popular breeze from the injury of others, whether just or unjust. Those wounded by their virulent bites do not waste away, but rather, by twisting the poison back upon the attackers, these men cast down their own reputation instead. A certain Frenchman This refers to the French jurist and philosopher Jean Bodin (c. 1530–1596). in his book on Demonomania original: "Dæmonomania," referring to Bodin's famous 1580 work "De la démonomanie des sorciers," which was a treatise on the prosecution of witches., called me a Magician and sorcerer...