Silence After the Clamors

than have actually been known by men. Nor let anyone think that all hidden things are destined to be revealed, or that progress is made so far with arts and sciences that nothing more can be discovered which is a gift of nature; but let him think that the round circles of Nature are so connected to one another that one holds the other like a chain which will not end as long as the world exists. Natural things are bodies which are packed into this sphere, outside of which nothing worthy of great consideration occurs, unless they are purely spiritual and divine. As art uses what is subjected to nature, so it observes its footsteps and in many things imitates them; indeed, it sometimes corrects that which is wandering and admonishes that which has forgotten its duty, creating or introducing nothing new into the world. Although with a pleasing deception it often produces from two or more natural things a third, whether this should be called natural or artificial, I do not know. From the observation of natural things, art is born, with Method as midwife and Reason as mother. If, therefore, the end of art does not correspond to nature, it seems to have been born of a spurious conception, and is not genuine; that is, the theorems of arts and sciences must conform to the works of nature