PREFACE TO THE KING

1. But to place it in the lowest and first kind of Philosophizing Philosophizing: here, the study of the fundamental laws of nature and the universe: I do not believe this was done arrogantly by me. Even if, from the ground, it sometimes seems to want to raise its head higher: From that same degree of GOODNESS, therefore, I dare to promise your Highness that rich fruits are to be hoped for from this gift of mine original: "Munere"; the author refers to the book itself as a formal "gift" or "offering" to the King.

2. And this gift of ours is also endowed with this Rarity. Because it is woven in that kind of writing—right down to the very last thread of the discourse—of which I have never, to this day, been able to hear of any completed work, nor understand it from the monuments of our ancestors.

3. Although I may call it Hieroglyphic Hieroglyphic: a symbolic or mystical method of writing where images contain hidden philosophical truths, nonetheless anyone who examines it more deeply will admit that there underlies it both a Light and a Strength that is, as it were, Mathematical In this period, "mathematical" implied a sense of logical certainty and divine proportion, suggesting the symbols are not arbitrary but based on universal laws. Which, in such Rare matters, is clearly Rare enough to practice.

4. Is this not Rare, I ask: that the common Astronomical characters of the Planets These are the standard symbols for the planets, such as ☉ for the Sun or ☽ for the Moon,