Silence After the Clamors

every one of them may be able to be investigated and obtained by itself. What Plato pronounced concerning the concord of goods and the consensus of minds—that Hesperus or Lucifer does not shine more brightly—I think should deservedly be said of the symphony or natural embrace of such arts. For what is more accommodated to demonstrating the truth of them? What more convenient for the utility of men? What more noble for necessity? Through these, the silent masters speak and understand one another. Through these, Nature opens the hidden recesses of her bosom and shows them only to the worthy. Through the same, the mother offers herself to be touched and seen by her children—that is, Nature to herself—or so that man (who is not only a part of the works of nature but also a compendious Idea of the universe) may know and contemplate himself, to which end he was created, placed in this world, and is destined to migrate from here into another life. Therefore, we owe no small gratitude to the investigators of this natural science, whoever they may be, or in whatever place they may have wished to be hidden and safe, not with insults, calumnies, or infamy, which are the rewards of the multi-headed beast, the common crowd,