SECTION ONE,

BOOK ONE.

CONCERNING THE EXPERIMENTAL OR DEMONSTRATIVE INSTRUMENT.

THE ARGUMENT OF THIS BOOK.

1 Corinthians 1:22

This first book, which serves as a sort of preface and preparation for the four following books, declares that since the minds of worldly men in this present day have been raised and elevated to the very highest peak of infidelity—so much so that, in the manner of the Jews, they refuse to believe without signs and demonstrations: For the Jews require a sign (says Paul) and the Greeks seek after wisdom original: "Iudæi signa petunt... & Græci sapientiam" etc.—the author of this treatise has judged that the primary means of victory in this Herculean conflict (which must be waged between two enemies and most powerful combatants: Truth and Falsehood, that is, the Wisdom of God and that of the world) would be found if he could discover some common and well-known experiment or practical instrument. This would serve our heavenly Athlete—namely, Truth—in place of a club or Herculean mace to tame and exterminate that deformed and horrendous monster, Infidelity, which so stubbornly sets itself forth to uphold the statutes and privileges of its master, the prince of error and darkness. For those who refuse to be directed and led to the center of truth by a real, practical, and visual demonstration are rightly to be judged more irregular and wandering from the polished and squared rules of royal reason than beasts or brute animals; for even beasts, governed by experience (which for that reason is called the mother of fools), are accustomed to choose what they have proven to be good, while greatly avoiding what they have found to be harmful to themselves. For this cause, therefore, and to this effect, he has chosen a certain spiritual machine called by the name Calendar Mirror original: "speculi Calendarij"; likely a specialized astronomical or liturgical tool used for calculation, which he himself calls his experimental or demonstrative instrument, so that through its visual and practical experiments he may outline the falsehood of worldly wisdom and philosophy and defend the Truth—which, deriving its origin from the Father of Lights, is life, truth, and the true Cornerstone original: "Lapis angularis"; a Christological reference to Ephesians 2:20 in whom and through whom every creature exists and is preserved in its being.

CHAPTER I.

Here the author expresses the reason why, at the entrance or beginning of this philosophical discourse, he proposes the construction, properties, and use of a certain experimental machine or instrument.

I confess, it is a thing worthy of praise to prove and sustain a philosophical proposition with sharp arguments and weapons, as if selected from the quiver of natural reason; but because subtle inquiries and objections of that sort (however probable and likely they seem at first sight) are nevertheless mostly found in the end to be false and full of error, therefore those who [rely] on the inviolable [authority] of the Holy Scriptures...