PREFACE.

Frankfurt: 1611

Ornamental woodcut drop cap 'Q' features a central fleur-de-lis motif surrounded by scrolling foliage, contained within a square frame.Whatever exists in the entire universe of the All-Good, All-Great Parent of all things, Natura Nature, which the most ancient authors of wisdom and piety called the Mundus World—that is, the Ornatus Adornment—for its elegance and beauty, is governed by the admirable wisdom of the Architect and Conservator of all things that we see and do not see. It is seen in the movements, revolutions, and turns of the seasons, the changes of the weather, and the tides and reciprocations of the Great Ocean of the Sun, the Moon, and the remaining stars. The more we pursue the investigation of these Powers or Acts with the subtle inquiry of a sharp mind, the more we revoke the sight of our Intellect from them with greater astonishment. For if we contemplate the Earth more subtly, without an instrument, descending to that which is nothing, or which is comprehended in the middle of this Universe by the sole power of Imagination, what are we to say to the inquiry of such an abstruse cause? How weak, how dull is the sight—I will not say of Fernel, or Fracastoro, or Cardano, but even of Caesar?
Scaliger How unequal, how immense is the proportion between that which is to be known and the mind that knows it? How