Preface

where, while I was diligently intent upon advancing my studies, this child was born to me (born under my pen, not as a footman to the medicine I have investigated until now, but as its forerunner). Yet, it is not as immature as one might imagine, such that it cannot survive, for I have nurtured it within myself longer than it is said elephants carry their young. Yet now, I confess, I have brought it into the light in a rough and bear-like birth a classical metaphor for an unrefined or underdeveloped literary work. For I have been less solicitous about words than about things, and less concerned with the petty glory to be captured from it than with the utility to be provided to others. Accept, therefore, benevolent readers, this labor of mine, which is new in this genre. As it will not appear superfluous to true Theology, so it will be most useful to the entire Encyclopedia, such as Politics and civil life (which Jurisprudence treats), Medicine, Chemistry, Poetry, History, Astronomy, Physics, and other sciences and arts. And although it may seem to contain paradoxes in that it seems to infringe upon what has been accepted for so many centuries, I believe that which agrees with truth in all things—even if it dissents from the majority in its opinions—is to be embraced more than that which conforms to the prejudices of so many who hold opinions. And since we follow this in divine matters, why should we not do the same in human affairs, which are estimated to approach them most closely? But if anyone prefers to approve of Paganism and the multitude of gods, and does not recognize in these matters the Chemistry that is true even to him, pleasing himself with a certain critical sharpness, let him do as he pleases. In the meantime, he will never make the falsity of the former, nor the truth of the latter, understood as vain to those who possess true insight. You, who carry the spark of the Promethean light in your breasts, who carry the wisdom of Pallas Pallas Athena, goddess of wisdom in your minds, even if you do not acknowledge a common altar with them, neither that of Vulcan nor of Vesta, defend this study of ours from the injuries of the envious and the scourgers for the sake of your own candor, and strive with all your might to raise and extract Truth from the deep pit or cave into which Democritus testified it was immersed with laughter, and Heraclitus with weeping. To you alone, I say, to whom it has been given to be wise before others, these (MOST SECRET SECRETS) are opened and revealed, as you are the ones who know how to pass judgment on these matters from a genuine dexterity of understanding; but to the rest, the plebeians, the unlearned, the inexperienced in these matters, the mockers and mimes, we hope they remain truly arcane and closed, as we deem them unworthy, for whom nothing that tastes of wisdom, nothing except gain or that which is pleasing to the senses and the vulgar, appears valuable.