Michaelis Maieri viatorium, hoc est, de montibus planetarum septem, seu metallorum

PREFACE

Scarcely one in a thousand is accustomed to extricate themselves, so that they are certain about the true and indubitable exit. For how many out of the number of so many writers have attested anything other than to declare themselves not ignorant of the secret of the Philosophers, and meanwhile, to entangle one who was following in their footsteps, and to detain them by throwing in obstacles? Who has not imitated the spider with its textures and webs, who, as often as he sees a fly has fallen into it, running up, entangles it the more, so that it does not escape, so far is he from freeing it? Very rarely does one follow the custom of the Athenians, praiseworthy in these matters, among whom it was considered a crime not to have shown the way to one who was wandering, and a sacrilege to have led them further away from it. From which those very authors of Chemistry protest that whoever desires the truth of the art through the medium of books will scarcely ever arrive at it, namely because of the windings and inextricable errors of the books, to decline or avoid which, no one at first glance is discerning, unless perhaps by the experience of a long time.