On the Magnet

PRÆFATIO (PREFACE)

Therefore, in magnetic discipline, those who progress further trust more in hypotheses and profit more abundantly; nor will anything be certain to anyone in magnetic philosophy, in which either everything, or at least the majority of things, are not known. This physiology is almost entirely new and unheard-of, except for the few who have passed down a little about certain common magnetic powers. Therefore, we do not call upon the ancients and the Greek auxiliaries, because neither can Greek arguments demonstrate truth more subtly, nor can Greek words signify it or illustrate it better. For our magnetic doctrine is alien to most of their principles and decrees. Nor have we brought any varnish of eloquence or ornamentation of words to this work; but we have done only this, that difficult and unknown things might be treated by us in that form of speaking and with those words necessarily required so that they can be clearly understood. We use certain new and unheard-of words at times, not so that darkness or mists might be cast upon things with inept veils of vocabulary (as the Chemistae alchemists are wont to do), but so that hidden things, not yet named and never until now perceived, might be handed down plainly and completely. After magnetic experiments and the knowledge of the homogeneous parts of the Earth, we proceed to the general nature of the whole Earth; where it has also been decreed to philosophize freely, with the same license as the Egyptians, Greeks, and Latins formerly used to disseminate their dogmas: for many errors in those have long been handed down, as if from hand to hand, to more recent writers; upon which those who are half-learned still rely, wandering as if in perpetual darkness. Let their honor always be attributed to those ancient and, as it were, first parents of philosophy—Aristotle, Theophrastus, Ptolemy, Hippocrates, Galen—from whom wisdom flowed to posterity; but our age has discovered and brought to light many things which they would gladly embrace, even if they were alive. Therefore, we have not hesitated to explain those things which we have discovered through long experience using probable hypotheses. Farewell.