TO THE READERS.

You may perhaps wonder why, in such a great series of writers, I bring to light things that have been drummed into you until nausea by infinite authors everywhere. It may seem that I wish to serve up, not twice but a hundred times, warmed-up cabbage original: "cramben ... decoctam", a reference to the Juvenalian expression for repetitive, tiresome discourse, which by its very sight disturbs your animal economy note: a term referring to the bodily functions and physical constitution, or which, if received with a grim face, might provoke an inimical mind against this little book. But I ask you, pause your judgment for a while and restrain your bile until, with a calm heart, you have looked upon what I have proposed and what has been debated by others, using those ears and eyes with which you drink in the writings and warnings of others; after that, let your judgment be free. I neither believe nor hope that these things will please everyone, for I propose to myself three primary types of readers: the benevolent, the envious, and the learned. From the benevolent, I have nothing to fear. Since envy is paved by the path of virtue, I will count it to my honor that I have never pleased the delirious and unlearned envious man. However, I freely challenge all the learned (since they are held in the highest veneration by me), because I profess myself docile until the final breath of life, so that they may impart better things to these meager rudiments of my genius, so that they may be illuminated by experiments as if by a torch.