Key to the Secrets of Nature

To the Reader.

We are fulfilling the promise we made to continue publishing the works of this beloved Author. It would have been proper for this book to appear before you first, kind Reader, since it was the first by which we came to know the Author and because it was written before those which we have already published: for its first volume was printed in a second edition original: "тисненіемъ" — literally "pressing," an archaic term for an edition or printing as early as 1791, while the fourth appeared in the year 1792. However, to undertake from the start the publication of a book consisting of several parts before the Author had become known to the public would have been risky; moreover, other circumstances did not permit it.

The Author original: "Сочинитель" — composer or writer states that his intention in writing this book was to make people more attentive to Nature original: "Натурѣ" — Nature, here referring to the divinely ordered natural world, and to prove as much as possible that one should not believe everything, yet nor should one reject everything; showing partly through theoretical observations and partly through practical experiments that much which is miraculous and incredible is worthy of impartial The text ends mid-sentence as the page concludes.