Handbook of Restored Physics and the Secret Work of Hermetic Philosophy

[Na]ture’s care might repay me; and also that I might vindicate myself from public accusation. For an indictment for deserting the laws of my country and my public duties already seemed prepared against me, as if I were a runaway original: "transfugam"; the author uses the language of military desertion to describe his retirement from public office.. Lest they should use their votes to condemn me as an outlaw under such a title, I fled to the sacred protection of the secret laws of the Universe original: "Vniversi"—to which the name of our "common homeland" is truly owed—which might safeguard my innocence from slander.

For a sense of decency will not allow political laws to decree a harsh sentence against a man who, having set aside the anxieties of civil cares, has devoted himself to the study and cultivation of the Worldly Republic original: "mundanæ Reipublicæ"; d’Espagnet is invoking the Stoic concept of the Cosmopolis, suggesting that the entire natural world is a greater state than any single kingdom..

Therefore, as I turned my mind toward the empire of Nature, its laws, order, governance, harmony original: "concentum"; suggesting a musical or mathematical concord in the way the world functions., effects, causes, and finally its immense riches, I was first seized by wonder original: "admiratio". For noble minds, wonder is no less a spur to acquiring knowledge than it is an admission of ignorance; for wonder [drives] the mind into