TO THE READER

...years over twenty, it at last
emerges victorious, soon to
display to your eyes and
touch that which you seek
so anxiously and with such
great difficulty. Finally, here is
the Harmony original: "concentus" and Consensus
of all the Philosophers,
undertaken by many indeed,
but perfected and completed
by no one: which, without
any waste of money, without
rules or formulas of
recipes, and with little
labor and few expenses,
offers to you of its own accord
what neither the immense
riches of Croesus A King of Lydia famous for his legendary wealth; here used to mean that no amount of money can buy this knowledge.,
nor all the common recipes
of the charlatans agyrtarum: itinerant quacks or fraudulent alchemists who peddled false secrets and deceptive chemical "receptæ".,