PREFACE

[guiding] principles original: "directrices" (completing the word from the previous page), which we need so that we do not wander from the path of truth when investigating the causes of phenomena. Finally, it presents the principles which we cannot do without in physical demonstrations. It is to be attributed to the neglect of this discipline that "monsters of the imagination" were admitted into Physics along with hidden qualities qualitates occultae Refers to properties that were claimed to exist without being observable or mechanically explained, a practice Wolff and other Enlightenment thinkers sought to replace with rational principles., and that authors have been ignorant of what is required for a full explanation of a phenomenon.

I will not speak here of the use which General Cosmology has in Psychology and Teleology The study of purpose or design in nature., because its multifaceted and excellent use in Natural Theology and Physics is abundantly sufficient to recommend it or to prove its necessity. Occasionally, however, in our Leisure Hours original: "Horis nostris Subsecivis"; a reference to the author's series of academic essays or periodic publications., there will be a place to discuss certain specific uses, just as in the Hours of the previous year we presented the connection of things nexus rerum in human affairs as the foundation of prudence.

Therefore, anyone who persuades himself that the principles of Cosmology are sterile is utterly mistaken; for nothing occurs within it upon which momentous truths do not depend—truths that could hardly be brought into the light original: "in apricum"; literally "into the sunny place." by any other way. For this reason, we have also taken care that our diligence should not be found wanting in explaining those things which will be of such great benefit to us in other disciplines. We have unfolded the connection of things—without which the world in general cannot be conceived—with sufficient labor, especially since very few understand what it means The text cuts off here at the catchword "velit" (means/wishes), to be continued on the next page....