Chemical Letters to Excellent Philosophers and Physicians in Germany

Various judgments must be undergone by him who dares to commit his labors to the public and submit them to the common censure. It pleased me to warn the reader about some things in the vestibule, lest he stumble at the very first threshold by suspecting something sinister about this work. Firstly, when you see the word CHYMIA on the front of this book, do not think, reader, that I am embracing and professing that παλιγγενεσίαν rebirth/regeneration which has already been exploded several times, only to bring it back in through the back door. Paracelsianism and Chemistry are very different things. It is not honorable for the most chaste and pure art to be named after a most impure man and a corruptor of truth. I follow the institutions of the ancients. I would wish for these to be explained methodically, combined with the observations of recent philosophers—not Paracelsians, but Peripatetics and Hippocratics—and illustrated with the continuity of precepts. If, likewise, you find something that Paracelsus taught in the same way, or even see his name mentioned, think that it does not rely on his authority, but on the truth and the previously mentioned philosophers of old and new. I embrace truth for its own sake, and I illustrate it with the calculation of those who think most excellently. It is the same regarding Paracelsus, whether he denies something or affirms it. Furthermore, do not be surprised that I have used an epistolary form rather than scientific instruction, and that I have not so much commanded as I have consulted.