"The following translation is from the copy of 1630. I have endeavoured to keep as close to the style of the original as I could, and perhaps the reader may sometimes think I had better have been less curious in my attempts to imitate its quaintness. He will too, occasionally, find the matter redundant, and the argument tedious. I once proposed to abridge it, but better judgments preferred giving it in its entire form, as a work, when divested of the rude philosophy of the day, of unquestionable genius and singular penetration, and one which, if not itself the real basis of modern chemistry, contains at least, such principles, that, had they, been duly appreciated and followed up from the instant of their promulgation, could hardly have failed, long since, to have raised the science to an equal, or, perhaps, even a greater, height than that which it at present holds."