Chemical Letters to Excellent Philosophers and Physicians in Germany

appeared far more prudent and preferable than sending individual letters to individuals. For in that way, I would have received scattered judgments, and perhaps I would have written them to some, about whom another could have judged more correctly, not to mention the difficulty of sending them. Now, in one volume, all can see the entire plan. Thus, the matter has been more justly encompassed in a book. But indeed, many do not easily agree unless bound by one certain link and reduced to concord in one thing. Since, therefore, it would have to depend on the leadership of one, I have brought the minds of all—as if surveyed—to your excellence, noble men, which I humbly ask that it be willing to embrace this work with its authority and protection. This labor befits the Estate of the Empire and a noble Republic. For where Aristocracy has conspired with Monarchy—namely, the most praiseworthy forms of political government—into the form of an excellent Empire with a pleasant tempering, there it is necessary, just as they overflow in every other excellent thing, that there also be a safeguard for clear letters. And the Republic, which is excellently constituted for you, encourages not only—as I have learned from trustworthy sources—other industrious men who are not alien to the study of chemical contemplations and operations, but also MARTIN