PRÆFATIO.

Indeed, I know that from the herd of ignorant donkeys, not a few will be found who, with their braying—I mean their laughter—will undoubtedly receive my discourse and mix such chatter among themselves and say: "Look, brothers, what Glauber writes! He will express juices from wood and stones and change them into saltpeter. What does it seem to you about this matter? Is it not better that we refresh ourselves by drinking or playing at dice than that we waste time reading these trifles? The trifles he utters cannot be likely to me." But the others, who have drawn their wisdom from the same Threïcia asmystide Thracian ignorance (an obscure classical reference to boorishness), and are no wiser than the former, are compelled to offer their assent to a greater heap of fools.

How various and diverse were the judgments such men scattered about my treatise named Miraculum mundi Miracle of the World? But since all things have now been explained and demonstrated point by point, they retract their Theoninos Theonian/vicious (referring to the malicious poet Theon) teeth and are shamefully suffused with modesty because they contaminated my honest reputation among the magnates with such false and sinister judgments, which could perhaps happen to this little work also. But the truth of those things which I have committed to writing concerning the concentration and condensation of wine, grain, and wood, I cannot better construct and confirm than if I produce the same into the sight of the eyes, so that, as the thing itself meets the eyes, all admiration may cease and all incredulity may vanish. To all these things also exhibited in this writing, faith must be applied as to experienced truth: which do not come forth into public for any other end than that they may produce such natural sciences for the benefit and utility of one's neighbor.