AD LECTOREM.

...and tireless as the reader, after immense labors exhausted and no small expenses interposed, may render him circumspect and learned, and may open and show him the bosom of NATURE, by the inscrutable counsel of God. And although the causes of their obscurity are truly very probable—namely, that an unworthy person should not ascend to the summit of the most secret hill, nor even a worthy one except after many previous vexations—yet these do not suffice to involve and obscure all truth in darkness and errors, even for those teachable sons of the art. As a remedy for these, I, who have been detained for a long time in this very Labyrinth, not ignorant of the desire with which success in individual undertakings is hoped for and finished, or what might be sought or found under which mountains, have decided to traverse, investigate, and ascend all the MOUNTAINS of the planets, and to descend most deeply into their individual mines, and to place before the eyes of all endowed with reason what may be elicited or obtained from which and how, so that they themselves, unless they are entirely incredulous or ignorant of all things, may not have the task of breaking the same ice or wandering through the same errors.