Friedrichstadt Leisure or the Chemical Tantalus

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...commend, and just as he is the victor and subduer of the Turks, so may your Society, together with its best members, cast a greater and greater light of all kinds of learning day by day, and lead the Medical Art to the most perfect state, which may the supreme Deity bring about! Farewell, favor me, who am yours, T. T. Nestor II. Friedrichstadt, 1717, May 19th, at the first hour after midday.

Preface.

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Since the most benevolent God has placed us humans in this most beautiful Theater of the world, in which as many things as there are Creatures in the three Kingdoms of Nature, and as many stars as are shining in the sky, and as many phenomena of meteors as there are, just so many most eloquent tongues address man, the inhabitant of the world: "By looking at me, celebrate your Creator and mine, honor Him, and with a devout mind worship Him; search out my nature, for I am a treasure-chest of wondrous gifts, with which I adorn this spectacular theater and serve you." Therefore, anyone of sound mind understands what the duty of man, placed in this most beautiful theater, should be. Especially for this end God gifted man, the most excellent of all creatures, with genius and intellect, so that he might use both for the honor of God by searching out the great works of God. And since the objects of genius and intellect are innumerable, these are all arranged in such a way that, if we perform an anatomy of them, we are forced to confess, this is the finger of God. When Jannes and Jambres, the Magi in Egypt, could not stop the lice, but they were produced by Moses, they burst into these words: this is the finger of God! As often as we see some tiny little animal, even in the family of Insects, we correctly say, this is the finger of God! For this little animal has within itself, and in its structure, and in its figure, and in the organs of its senses, and the disposition of its other parts, things that proclaim the omnipotence and wisdom of God, and ring out the praises of its Creator. The structure of insects has enticed and inflamed the minds of many learned men to understand their nature, as the commentaries they have written about insects prove. The papers of Jungius Joachim Jungius, a prominent 17th-century German philosopher and naturalist. deserve reading here. Blancardus Stephanus Blancardus, a Dutch physician and author known for his medical dictionary and works on anatomy., while he lived, the ornament of the Dutch physicians, and one who deserved well of the Medical Republic by his writings...