Subterranean Physics

By setting aside The OCR "Etus" is likely a fragment or misreading, but the catchword from the previous page "sepo-" confirms the word is seponendo, meaning "setting aside." (as I will soon demonstrate) those things which should be omitted, I shall neither blush nor cease to honor those men with the praise they deserve—praise that is solid and truthful. Just as I do not consider this a matter of shame for myself, so it should not be held against me that I do not grant equal eulogies to a great number of such men. While I leave it undecided whether it is the fault of my own narrow studies that I have not examined everyone who might deserve equal praise, or a fault of judgment that failed to find anything worthy of equal praise elsewhere.

As for the charge that it might be arrogant—a rash accusation typical of hasty minds—to promise publicly that I consider myself as capable as anyone else in explaining or illustrating Becher, all such appearance of vanity will vanish immediately if the fates of the author, his writing, and the subject matter he deals with are correctly understood. Therefore, it will be worthwhile to unfold and explain these matters as much as necessary.

As to who JOHANN JOACHIM BECHER Johann Joachim Becher (1635–1682) was a German physician and alchemist, best known as the father of the phlogiston theory, which Stahl later refined. was, I have labored so little to investigate his origins that I did not even think it worthwhile to burden that most learned man, Mr. Detlev Cluver, with any inquiry—even though recently, in his erudite Observations, he mentioned Becher and suggested in a few words: that Becher was of Jewish descent. original: Beccherum gente Judæum fuisse. During this period, such a remark was often intended to marginalize a scholar, but Stahl dismisses its relevance to Becher's scientific merit. For indeed, from wherever a man might have descended into this world, provided he is good, upright, truthful, learned, and skilled—free in word and deed from ambition, vanity, and falsehood—I would no more think him of little value than I would think highly of those who might be born in my own country, or even (God forbid) in my own house, but who are possessed of the opposite character.

For it is not through words and elegant maxims, but in actual fact, that I seriously know, acknowledge, and feel—indeed, I live my life such—that I value all those things which external fortune adds no more than an embroidered garment or horse-trappings; which can add no value to a man, just as they add none to a horse, if he lacks internal gifts and character. original: majoris non faciam, quam vestem pictam, aut phaleras; quæ nihil pretii facere possint homini æque ac equo, internis donis atque indole destituto Hence, since my youth, I have been pleased by that phrase of Barclay’s John Barclay (1582–1621), a Scottish writer whose Neo-Latin works were popular for their moral and political insights.—as noble as it is clever—in which he describes a good man of proven virtue virtus: Here meaning moral excellence and intellectual merit combined. as worthy of being desired as a citizen by the prayers of all nations.

Thus, I do not think it matters who our author was, but rather what kind of man he was. I set aside once again not only his reputation but the general testimonies of his life, in case he should deserve praise in one respect while being open to criticism in another. For although I loathe that modern custom where praising virtue seems to belong only to the school benches—and indeed, where people now learn to praise vices with flatteries and conceal shameful acts, provided there is even a small fee for a tongue for hire—and while I think that what lacks praise should by no means be approved or overlooked, nevertheless,