Sebastiani Wirdig ... Nova medicina spirituum : curiosa scientia et doctrina, unanimiter hucusque neglecta, et a nemine merito exculta, medicis tamen et physicis utilissima ...

The fables of the poets are not mere trifles, nor the empty inventions of idle men. Rather, under these coverings and wrappings, every elegant doctrine, every knowledge worthy of a noble man, and finally, all wisdom is contained. The ingenious poets imagine that Jupiter denied fire to mortals out of indignation: that Deucalion generated humans from stones, or rather from the earth and the elements; and that Prometheus, by the counsel and aid of Minerva, climbed the heavens and stole fire for the animation of mortals.

Prometheus was a certain man, most skilled in the natural philosophy of the first age. He, by the counsel of Minerva—that is, by the sharpness of his intellect—climbed the heavens, that is, he investigated the heavens...