Kircher: Iter Exstaticum Coeleste (1660) (1660) - Page 15

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And he approved it, with no one until now disapproving,

Except for either a Madman or an Atheist.

Through this folded Book, a path until now hidden,

Which ATHANASIUS KIRCHER A famous 17th-century Jesuit polymath known for his massive works on science, religion, and oriental studies. discovered,

You shall see, if you unfold this;

And you shall read, if you understand.

Lest, however, you stumble at the first entrance,

Do not think it to be a fable because you read it to be an

ECSTATIC JOURNEY,

And indeed born from a dreaming Mathematician.

So the unlearned Rabble judges.

Nor is it immediately a fable because it sounds Mathematical,

If true Philosophy be its Companion:

Since he is not a true Mathematician who is not a Philosopher;

Nor a true Philosopher who is not a Mathematician.

Hence this difference lies between the Genius

Of the Common-Mathematician and the Philosopher-Mathematician:

The former is carried by wind, the latter by reason:

The dreams of the former are ravings,

Those of the latter are doctrines, because they are reasonings.

And the ravings of the former vanish with sleep, and often before sleep,

Because they are immature:

The Doctrines of the latter endure after sleep and through years and ages,

Because they are mature.

PHILOSOPHY AND MATHEMATICS

Are the Two Wings on which ATHANASIUS KIRCHER flew,

And from the Moon even to the furthest Borders of the World

He penetrated, and saw all things

Which the Artisan of the World,

THE TRIUNE GOD, original: "DEUS TRIUNUS" has built:

Returning from there, he balanced himself upon the earth by the same means

Even to the very Center,

And measured the seas and the Abysses.

Yet in a beautiful order, truly worthy of a Philosopher:

He surveyed, to be sure, the Earth, which he was destined to leave,