Physiologia Kircheriana Experimentalis

We must not hesitate, due to the sluggishness of a dormant intellect or the cowardly imbecility of things, but our mind must be urged on as much as possible, lest, in order for hidden things to be laid open, it appear entirely removed from those operations to whose principles—before the fall of human nature—we could more freely fly in order to investigate and attain them. To what a divine height Kircher’s genius rises, we can easily understand from those very shadows of sloth being dissipated, since in a learned man there arises that which is promulgated regarding wisdom, namely, that all things obey the wise. It is indeed so, for all things, both collectively and individually, seem to accede to the nod of Kircher’s magnanimous mind, while he commands nature herself to cast off her obscure difficulties and to enlighten them with an open doctrine, so that all public chairs may hold him in reverence, all libraries may be filled with a new light of investigation, the misguided opinions of the ancients may be reduced to a certain standard, and whatever was previously accessible to stupidity may be repaired by the illustration of a new wisdom on account of its own deformity. Yet, to attain this light of wisdom, some little owls have not feared to fly rashly, and hence, at the cost of their own reputation, greater glory redounds to Kircher, since the light of unaccustomed learning is increased by the malevolence and envy of others. No great virtue has ever shone upon the earth that was ignorant of detractors; it is also a work of divinity that illustrious merits should be surrounded by the calumny of the wicked, so that, with envy vanquished, it may be confounded, and virtue may remain superior, lest from this there ever be fear for the wicked, and hope be absent for the virtuous.

The first to rise up, bloated to the full with a boastful spirit, was one Meibomius by name, a smatterer and sycophant, who intended to gnaw and scrape at the Musurgia of my most celebrated author with a Theonine tooth. He was utterly intolerable to all mathematicians, and most especially to the said Musurgia, which, in his prolegomena to the ancient musicians, he attacked with petulant words and slanders, thinking he could draw himself into the poor opinion of his readers. However, the opposite occurred, since all authors noted in the frenzy of his overheated mind a vast perturbation, which can never consist with truth; and indeed, in this musical contest, he achieved nothing other than to, like a timid duelist who, while fearing the close engagement of an adversary, is intent on nothing but clipping the wings of gold, criticize with puffed-out cheeks the grammatical points regarding the Greek language and his own imagined barbarisms, while he refuted nothing of solid argument regarding the substance, and was therefore exposed to the mockery of all.

Another dared to inveigh against the author’s Hieroglyphica, saying that neither the ancient Egyptians nor Kircher understood the Hieroglyphics, which never existed, but were figments of his own invention. Whence, against the author’s work, the Oedipus Aegyptiacus—a work in truth entirely admirable and most filled with all celestial wisdom—he raves with this tenor of words: "Indeed, I do not think that among men born a prouder, more insolent, more fastuous, and more audacious work has been brought to light." So sound the words of the calumniating Empiric. And I, for my part, do not think that anything more foolish, more insolent, or more audacious could be devised than to criticize those things which, when presented to faithful eyes, he had not observed; and just as he stumbled most gravely against the truth, so, suspected of atheism, he sinned against God by blaspheming that what Kircher had promulgated were not the mysteries of the Egyptians, but figments—not knowing, or not wishing to know, that the oracles of the Holy Scriptures clearly teach that Moses was learned in this occult science and was not ignorant of these signs. Furthermore, to not believe in the Egyptian Obelisks, which stand with such distinguished pomp throughout the city, is stupid, since no one, unless he be ignorant of all things, can be unaware that they were transported here to Rome from Egypt by the Roman victors, and that they signify all those things which the Great Kircher elucidated with the wonderful perspicacity of his genius, with the common applause of the wise. Since these things are evident and notorious, they have no need of a more prolix proof. Two remain, by whom—I know not what bile or cause for tumult—the eleventh book of the Mundus Subterraneus, written by Father Athanasius for the good of the whole world, was disturbed, where Alchemy is treated. Of these, one, Valesianus Bonvicinas, a Paduan professor of physics, and the other, under the fictitious name of de Blauenstein, entered the arena.

The former rose up against the Father out of a denial of the truth of the philosophers' stone, and although he asserted in words that were somewhat honorific, yet not without being steeped in bitterness and malice, that he would confuse the author of the Mundus Subterraneus by the very experience of the stone revealing the truth. Good God! How welcome, how pleasant would this confusion have been to my most upright old man, whose familiar necessity, beyond my merit, it has been my lot to enjoy for three years and more for the instruction of my own rudeness. If he had brought that matter by which the whole world, nay, even poverty and need themselves, is elevated to the highest hope and joy, then all that which lies miserably would not be confused, but truly raised up and sublimated. But trifles! I know you inside and out, I know your other finery; for behold, when he was called by the most serene Venetian magistrate to give an account of his stone, he stood confused and could not respond to his pretended art. Dismissed therefore as an imposter, he returned to Padua amidst much shame and sorrow of mind, and died there, after he had failed to weigh his Peripatetic Balance, which he wrote, with a more accurate scale and weight.