The Summary of Physics Restored

4At last love of truth and of you, candid champions of the light of natural philosophy, prevailed. The same love that had prompted the search for truth also prompted its publication. Let me obtain this one thing from you so that you may sit as fairer judges: shake off the names of Plato, Aristotle, and the great leaders of the philosophers; set aside the authority of these eminent men; preserve intact in your own keeping the trust that they have bound to themselves. When you unroll their writings, add “No evil eye!” lest the popular spell of an illustrious name creep into your minds. Far be it from me to ask that the slightest thing be taken from their fame or the greatness of their minds. I have always held them worthy of reverence like divine powers. I judge every accumulation of praise and glory unequal to the glory of such philosophers. They took up Philosophy, crying in her cradle, and increased her strength so far beyond her years that those lofty souls left posterity scarcely any hope of striving further. Yet the first age of Philosophy, newly born and not yet mature, did not permit every fold and winding of Nature to be unfolded and her most hidden secrets to be thoroughly disclosed with precision and without error—even in their own judgement.