Silence After the Clamors

This, therefore, is the true investigation of nature through art, to which the work of nature bears witness. Nor must we grieve with Plato, who was dedicated only to theory, that geometry was adapted from reflection and incorporeal things to those which are perceived by the senses by Eudoxus of Cnidus and his teacher Archytas of Tarentum. The latter gave a signal experiment of his art by making a flying dove; the former was the first to demonstrate the ratios and difficult demonstrations of geometry through sense and examples of instruments. Rather, one must recognize with a grateful mind that the fruit appeared after the flower and that the daughter, that is, practice, has been witnessed by the mother, that is, theory. If it is done otherwise, the arts are not arts, but are not unlike the Sophistries, which Lullius calls non-entities, while he affirms that they, being imaginary or at least positive, so burden the minds and memories of men that they scarcely provide a place for perceiving the true and real.
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