THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER.
THE Title of this Book gives thee little incouragement to buy or to read it, and it was purposely so given. If it per∣forms but as much as the Title pro∣miseth, thou art not deceived; if more, thou art advantaged.
The Subject is seemingly trivial, and suitable to the Title; yet it hath exercised the Wits and Pens of many Learned men, and makes way Page [unnumbered]to Natural Discoveries, and conse∣quences of greater importance; at the worst it may be an innocent Diver∣tisement, and possibly delightful to those that are pleased with Specula∣tions and Experiments of this na∣ture.
The Experiments therein are some new, some vulgar and common, and some borrowed from those Excellent persons, whom though the Author highly honours for their Learning and Industry, yet in some things dis∣sents from them in their Solutions and Conclusions from those Experi∣ments that they have most ingeni∣ously found out and delivered.
The Author pretends not to an equality of Learning to those from whom he thus dissents, much less to Infallibility; there may possibly hap∣pen Page [unnumbered]want of Exactness in his Tryals, there may be imperfect and mistaken Computations. The Diagrams though but few, yet rude. The Resolutions and Conclusions may either be imper∣fect, or not so clearly or evidently ex∣pressed, and inferred, or deduced.
But he that considers the intri∣cacy of this Inquiry, the various complications' of Causes, and Effects, and Appearances that occur therein, the great difficulty of arriving to exactness in the Experiments them∣selves, will rectify or easily excuse such mistakes or inadvertencies, if any such occur in these Papers.
If the Inquiry hath not attained its full complement and perfection in these Papers, yet the Author hath obtained his End therein, namely, to give hints and occasions to Ingenious Page [unnumbered]persons to make farther and better Discoveries, and to rectifie (if there be occasion) the mistakes of these or other mens Solutions; and to give a little warning to men of Wit and Parts, not to be too hasty or positive in exterminating the Aristotelian Philosophy, and entertaining new hypotheses, 'till they have fully and maturely considered, and well looked about them. The Author's Name is not prefixed, for it would be of small advantage or use: and he is thereby the fitter to bear the correction of his Errors, and to retract them with more ease, and less observation, if a∣ny such shall occur to his discovery or notice; and therefore hath left the Book it self, and the matters therein delivered, to bear their own burthen, and to stand or fall as they deserve.
