Magneticum Naturae Regnum

being sent here to Rome on account of business, he brought with him many of those things whose virtues and properties he could not sufficiently praise. But when I showed that I placed no faith in such a report of things, unless sensory experience itself made me certain of their virtue, he replied that he would not depart from Rome until I had become fully possessed of the truth of the proclaimed things through experience. Encouraged by this promise, I girded myself without delay to take the test of each and every one, and not without astonishment and admiration, I recognized that the things he had reported to me were true and worthy of every trust (as will be manifest in the course of this work). But since, in the very practice of these experiments, I detected certain remarkable and truly admirable magnetisms of occult virtue, I therefore judged that this little work ought to be inscribed concerning the threefold Magnet of Nature: Inanimate, Vegetable, and Sensitive. Furthermore, it will be for the benevolent reader to kindly excuse those things which perhaps have not been elucidated with such great perspicacity therein, and to weigh with himself, in the sincere balance of judgment, how difficult it is to open a path to the hidden recesses of properties which Nature has willed to be known to only a few. Finally, whatever they may be, I trust that they will contribute something to the glory of the Divine Name and to the use of the public good. Farewell, and favor my undertakings.