The Count

trusted his treasures to me deserved original: "merited" any punishment. You shall see how everything happened.

Common sense having always made me suspect that there was a great deal of emptiness in everything they call secret sciences secret sciences: the occult or "hermetic" arts, such as alchemy, astrology, and magic, which were kept hidden from the uninitiated, I was never tempted to waste so much time as to turn the pages original: "Leaves" of the books which discuss them. Yet, not finding it reasonable to condemn—without knowing why—all those who devote themselves to them (who are otherwise wise people, mostly very learned, and eminent in both the gown and the sword gown and sword: "the gown" refers to professions of law, medicine, or divinity, while "the sword" refers to military service and the nobility), I made a resolution. In order to avoid being unjust or wearing myself out with tedious reading, I decided to pretend original: "feigning" to be a great devotee of these sciences among all those whom I could learn were

Common sense

Secret sciences

Gown and sword

of