TO THE READER.

...a new system and method for writing books, contained within this problem: Given any argument or subject, to distribute it according to the rules of our Art The "Art" refers to the Ars Magna, a system of logic and memory developed by Ramon Llull into sections, titles, chapters, and paragraphs so skillfully that anyone about to write may obtain an inexhaustible supply of material for writing and speaking, without the use of any other books and without any mental fatigue. Just as this matter has been handed down by no one until now, it can scarcely be expressed how much ease and utility it brings to the extemporaneous outlining of composed works. Finally, through long practice of this Art, I have uncovered many things that are utterly paradoxical and admirable beyond human belief; since I have reviewed these at the conclusion of the work, I did not wish to dwell on them longer here. Finally, regarding the practical method of applying the Art, the reader should not expect new opinions here, but rather those most well-worn in the schools and lecture halls, derived according to the rules of the Art in accordance with the mind of St. Thomas St. Thomas Aquinas, the definitive Scholastic philosopher and the rest of the Scholastics Scholastics: Medieval academics who used a specific dialectical method of learning. Furthermore, the terms which Llull uses in demonstrating his arguments—which are plainly barbaric and foreign to the ears of the Scholastics—we have more wisely converted into common terms known to everyone, lest anything should occur that might render the beginner original: "Tironem" averse to the practice of our Art.

You have here, then, Reader, in a few words, my plan for amending and restoring the teaching of the Lullian Art. If in this I do not seem to have satisfied the expectations of the learned, I would wish you to excuse the weakness of my talent in explaining the most difficult and abstruse of all Arts, mindful of that saying: in great things, I will not say to have attempted, but merely to have willed is enough. A paraphrase of Propertius: "In magnis et voluisse sat est." If, however, fair judges of these matters shall decide that I have brought some light to this nearly forsaken Art through my labor, they shall credit it entirely to the Father of Lights above, the source and spring of all inexhaustible Light. Farewell, Reader, and look with favor upon my endeavors.