Dissertation on a Solid Body Naturally Contained Within a Solid

PRODROMUS OF A DISSERTATION.

... not only did I imagine [it to be finished] prematurely, but I also intrepidly asserted it to others. But then, as I examine individual places and bodies more attentively, doubts arise for me daily, following one another in an indissoluble chain, so that I have often seen myself led back as if to prison, when I believed myself near the finish line. I would call those doubts similar to the heads of the Hydra Lernaea Lernean Hydra, since, with one of them extinguished, countless others would be born; at least I found myself wandering in a certain labyrinth where, the closer one approaches the exit, the wider the circles one enters.

But I will not dwell on excusing this slowness of mine, since it is abundantly clear to you from long experience in matters how intricate a thing is that which is entangled in the chains of experiments. But that I should ask for permission to return to my Fatherland, interrupting everything after having overcome a large part of said labor, when something had to be attempted in Anatomy—that would finally require an excuse, if I did not know that such obedience, when subjects are under another Prince, would not be displeasing to you, which on a similar occasion would please you in those subject to you. My hope in your indulgence is made more certain by that singular benevolence with which, by adding a liberal subsidy to the growth of my studies, you wished to leave me complete freedom to depart whenever the occasion might so demand. Since, therefore, I do not dare to await the delay necessary for finishing the labors I have begun...