On the Movement of Animals, Part Two

to Numa, as the Gentiles would fabricate. For he is entirely devoted to showing that Mother Nature herself is not idle, nor anxious with superfluous circuit, nor blind, but provident, compendious, and disposing and ruling all things with a ready artifice. And truly, do not dread the difficulty because he proceeds with a mathematical radius, nor fear that there is need of a Delian swimmer, lest anyone be suffocated in the deep sea—as Socrates passed judgment regarding the book of Heraclitus concerning nature—for all things are as clear as they are excellent, such that you recognize nothing of mathematics except only evidence and demonstration, while the rest is explained by physical and transparent Anatomy. Hippocrates proposed that this part of mathematics be learned not only for the splendor of life but for the use of medicine to his son Thessalus, testifying that Arithmetic contributes to the periods of diseases, and Geometry to the knowledge of the position and dislocation of limbs; nor did the illustrious Borelli restrict himself to those things alone, but strove to extend them to the other comforts of life and health, perhaps being the first to do so by this method. Wherefore, by the reading of this work, you will provide for a twofold life: the Intellectual, which is for the most part fed by the novelty of recent Institutions, and the Natural, to the preservation of which both the healthy and the sick will perceive what they ought to avoid and what they can acquire, no less than a Physician.

You owe this Part, most excellent Reader, to the Heroic beneficence of Queen CHRISTINA, who, just as... that which Kings possess

she exercises most augustly upon the living; so she knows how to rouse the ashes of the deceased learned with inexhaustible munificence and to rescue them from Lethean darkness.

There remain some other fragments of the same Author, which he either disputed in the Supreme Academy of the same QUEEN, or elaborated at other times, and these, lest the remains of so great a Man be lost, we intend to bind together rudely and expose for the public utility. In the meantime, use these well, and Farewell. At Rome, from the Pious Schools at S. Pantaleone, 22 December 1681.