Chemical Letters to Excellent Philosophers and Physicians in Germany

PREFACE.

but as a disciple and consultant, as if setting myself before an honest examination of friends and to the testimony of excellent doctrine. I ask, however, that they do not disdain to respond to the dialogue. For thus the hoped-for progress will emerge. My mind also senses this, that there will be some who will say that I have been too much in the declarations through external documents: that all practice ought to have been proposed in their judgment nakedly, distinctly, and in the most childlike manner, so that even those who have never seen even an element of chemistry could have understood the matter thoroughly and spent their time in reading with profit. To others I will be too obscure and mystical, just as those are who complain that they cannot understand my previous writings for the same reason. But the craftsmen will accuse me of openly prostituting the art. Know, however, my critics, that I am conversing here familiarly with the learned. It was not too rancid and plebeian things that were to be poured into their capacity, but things a little more acute. Nor is nothing to be given to diversions. For an epistle does not bear as much rigor as mere precepts. And so I indulged more freely in the contemplation of physical things. If you complain about obscurity, you are unjust. For I added a commentary from the apparatus of nature and the workshop, so that I might not only show the sources but also teach more evidently. If you do not attain natural things, you are not yet apt for chemical works. Learn physics before cheireseis surgical or manual operations chemical.