PREFACE.

original: "Psudepurgeias"; likely a reference to false or forged works, from the Greek for "false labors."

I was noting down how these things stood up to the test of experience, with a mind more intent on finding truths than falsehoods. For I saw clearly that those authors had not committed such things to writing for the sake of empty profit or the pursuit of vain glory—things that were meant to endure forever—but rather to unearth the secrets of nature and reveal them, not without the greatest labor in writing and discovery. And when we found things that rang true, it was not nearly as precious to me as the discovery that the same care had occupied and troubled their minds. But after a long period of testing natural things original: "naturalium rerum periculum"; in this context, "periculum" refers to an experiment or trial., it was perceived through frequent observation, and we clearly saw knew that they had been more eager for writing than for investigating. They write many things far removed from the truth, passing information from one to another as if the actual operation were too difficult.

Cato.

Cato relates that a vessel made of ivy wood naturally separates wine, even if it has water mixed into it; when you pour into it that wine which you think contains water, he says that if the wine has been diluted, the wine flows out and the water remains, because ivy wood cannot hold wine. In ancient times, vessels were commonly fashioned to test diluted wine, devised to detect the frauds of the grape-harvesters.

Pliny, and almost everyone else, copies this from him; yet there is no one in such a long line of succession who actually tests it, for the opposite is apparent, Galen. and we do not know by what reasoning or experience they were led. Galen mocks the claim everyone put forward: that crushed basil [ocymum] very quickly generates scorpions. He himself, testing this with empty pots and heating them daily in the sun, detected the falsehood with great skill; and yet, if it is lightly bruised on the sides in a damp place and exposed to the sun, it produces those little ones i.e., small scorpions. which then grow day by day—and it is not that others were summoned there, attracted by the scent.

Pliny. Albertus.

Who would believe that those authors so famous in our literature? original: "ligna"; possibly a transcription error for "lingua" (language) or "literis" (letters/literature)., Pliny and Albert [Albertus Magnus], are very often mistaken? One of whom is called noble, the other a lying rustic; for while the former copies by relying on the testimony of others, the latter lies on his own authority. He is not consistent in his speech, nor does he know what he says about these things, and he often fills pages with the kind of chatter old women babble.

Why should I mention other men most famous for their authority? If they produced anything, they did not know the facts and the simple materials entering into the work through direct inspection alone; instead, they taught through the traditions of others, driven by a certain innate and untimely zeal for adding to the story. Aristotle & reason Thus, errors are successively propagated and eventually grow to such an immense size that not a trace of the original truth appears, and they are hardly recognizable from the start. They are written such that they are not only difficult to experiment upon, but cannot even be read without frequent laughter. Furthermore, we omit many others whom we did not think necessary to review at present, who [wrote] about salt, beans...