To the READER.

their errors, it led me into a serious consideration of their cause; and I found that it was impossible for those deluded searchers to waste away in such absurd operations original: "Operations"; the practical chemical experiments of alchemy. if they did not lack a sufficient theory of this art.

Then meditating further, and finding that the said theory (which is the main pillar and foundation to build upon) is not to be acquired except by the constant reading of good books, I at last began to consider those authors who are available in the English language original: "English Tongue". I found that there are really too few of them, and that it was chiefly to be attributed to this lack original: "Want"; a deficiency or absence of something. that people labor so much in vain, and so contrary to nature.