DEDICATION

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DEDICATION

...of those who know, yet they do not know at what point in space to aim; they attack the mark with arrows from all sides, but very few graze or wound it. Maier is using an archery metaphor to describe how many scholars attempt to find the truth but miss the target. Yet one thing truly offers itself among these sublunary original: "sublunaribus"; in the worldview of the time, this referred to the Earth and everything below the moon, which was subject to change and decay. matters, which, although it seems most abstruse and almost like a non-entity to all those philosophizing in every age and place, and is deemed unworthy of investigation; nevertheless, if it is well considered by the countless many who do not stick to the surface but penetrate into the depths of the matter, it is like a certain immobile point, noted by the eyes, perceived by the mind, and expressed more than a thousand times in the most diverse idioms of language, albeit under tropes and figures Literary devices and metaphors used to hide secrets from the uninitiated.; and that is held to be the SUBJECT OF CHEMISTRY. For in this, with all other ignorant people excluded, the philosophers of all ages—even the most ancient—and the first poets in their chief allegories and fictions, are in agreement. The peoples of all nations, differing in character, languages, customs, religion, laws, and other institutions of life; indeed, the wise men of all places, not only of so many kingdoms of Europe, but also of Africa and Asia: When I had weighed this, and observed that from this point—concerning Chemical truth—the desires of all men (as many as exist who are eager for knowledge, capable, or unlearned) are divided into two opinions. On one side, I have set those devoted to and favoring Chemistry from twelve principal nations who were at hand, as if a certain APOLLO Apollo, the Greek god of music, truth, and light, here represents the harmony and enlightenment of the alchemical art.; on the other side, those contradicting the same, who are a mixed and larger multitude, I have set as PAN Pan, the god of the wild and shepherds, often depicted as earthy and unrefined, represents the "coarse" masses who do not understand the higher arts.: By whom [Pan], since Apollo has been so often challenged to a singing contest—that is, Chemistry and those devoted to it by the ignorant and the foolish...