THE FIRST BOOK 33 



Albertus, and divers of the Arabians, being fraught 

 with much fabulous matter, a great part not only un 

 tried, but notoriously untrue, to the great derogation 

 of the credit of natural philosophy with the grave and 

 sober kind of wits : wherein the wisdom and integrity 

 of Aristotle is worthy to be observed ; that, having 

 made so diligent and exquisite a history of living 

 creatures, hath mingled it sparingly with any vain or 

 feigned matter : and yet on the other side hath cast 

 all prodigious narrations, which he thought worthy the 

 recording, into one book : excellently discerning that 

 matter of manifest truth, such whereupon observation 

 and rule was to be built, was not to be mingled or 

 weakened with matter of doubtful credit ; and yet 

 again, that rarities and reports that seem uncredible 

 are not to be suppressed or denied to the memory of 

 men. 



11. And as for the facility of credit which is yielded 

 to arts and opinions, it is likewise of two kinds ; either 

 when too much belief is attributed to the arts them 

 selves, or to certain authors in any art. The sciences 

 themselves, which have had better intelligence and 

 confederacy with the imagination of man than with 

 his reason, are three in number ; astrology, natural 

 magic, and alchemy : of which sciences, nevertheless, 

 the ends or pretences are noble. For astrology pre- 

 tendeth to discover that correspondence or concatena 

 tion which is betw r een the superior globe and the in 

 ferior : natural magic pretendeth to call and reduce 

 natural philosophy from variety of speculations to the 

 magnitude of works : and alchemy pretendeth to make 

 separation of all the unlike parts of bodies which in 

 mixtures of nature are incorporate. But the deriva 

 tions and prosecutions to these ends, both in the theories 

 and in the practices, are full of error and vanity ; which 

 the great professors themselves have sought to veil 

 over and conceal by enigmatical writings, and referring 

 themselves to auricular traditions and such other 

 devices, to save the credit of impostures. And yet 

 surely to alchemy this right is due, that it may be 

 c 



