Cosmologia Generalis

DEDICATION

...in order with the doctrine that finally arises from them through a long concatenated series of reasonings, nor, by turning one's mind to these things, is it permitted to discern the use which the doctrines born from those principles will afford in administering the Commonwealth and in promoting the happiness of the human race. And just as the largest trees are born from the smallest seeds, so truths of the greatest importance are deduced from principles which are deemed of small, or indeed of no, importance. If no mortal had yet seen the seeds from which trees take their origin, would it not seem like madness to the entire human race if someone, bringing a seed into view, were to assert that he wished to raise from such a minute granule a tree as tall as those we encounter in the forest? Therefore, the fertility of the first principles of philosophy seems to exceed all belief no less than this, before dogmas are deduced from them in less abstract disciplines and [brought] to use