Two New Sciences

Heavens and in the Celestial Bodies, with greater evidence and admiration than in all other Creatures, the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of the Supreme Creator shines), results the greatness of the merit of him who has opened our knowledge to it, by having rendered such Bodies distinctly conspicuous, notwithstanding their almost infinite distance from us: since, according to the common saying, the eye teaches much more, and with greater certainty, in a single day than precepts, however many times repeated, could ever do, Intuitive Knowledge (as another said) going hand in hand with definition. But much more manifest is the grace granted to him by God and by Nature (by means, however, of much labor and vigils) in the present Work, in which one sees that he has been the Discoverer of two entire new Sciences, and from their first principles and foundations, conclusively, that is, Geometrically, demonstrated. And that which should make this Work more marvelous: One of the two Sciences is concerning an eternal subject, the most principal in Nature, speculated upon by all the great Philosophers, and about which there are very many volumes written; I speak of Local Motion: a Matter of infinite, admirable accidents, none of which has been found, let alone demonstrated, by anyone until now. The other Science, also demonstrated from its principles, is concerning the resistance that solid Bodies make to being broken by violence: a piece of knowledge of great utility, and especially in the Mechanical Sciences and Arts; and it too is full of accidents and Propositions hitherto unobserved. Of these two new Sciences, full of Propositions that will be increased to infinity with the progress of time by Speculative wits, the first doors are opened in this Book; and with no small number of demonstrated Propositions, the progress and passage to other infinite ones is pointed out, just as will be easily understood and recognized by the Intelligent.