Chemical Compendium

in doctrine, so that having been made certain of the shortness of life and the length of art, they might exclaim: how much is there that we do not know! Therefore, why would it not be permitted to call all sciences and arts an anatomy or artificial dissection of natural bodies, where in general everything is reduced to innumerable parts either by the sharpness of the intellect or the skill of the hands, so that the notion of the whole might appear so much the clearer? Why should I enumerate the regrettable distractions of divine Scripture, the diverse exceptions of Law, the various opinions of Medicine, and the innumerable sciences and divisions of bodies in Philosophy? Since these come across you daily, most learned and distinguished men, who are versed in every doctrine, and all coincide in this one thing: that he is the most learned who can best divide them into more parts, whether by the anatomical knife of the mind or of the body, and who has a clear view of even the most minute details. I therefore omit those things, lest I appear to protract the time and abuse your