Mathematics Is The Gate And Key To

But Concerning Vision Alone Is A Separate Science Formed Among Philosophers, Namely, Optics, And Not Concerning Any Other Sense ... It Is Possible That Some Other Science May Be More Useful, But No Other Science Has So Much Sweetness And Beauty Of Utility. Therefore It Is The Flower Of The Whole Of Philosophy And Through It, And Not Without It, Can The Other Sciences Be Known.

For The Things Of This World Cannot Be Made Known Without A Knowledge Of Mathematics.

First, By The Figurations Of Art There Be Made Instruments Of Navigation Without Men To Row Them, As Great Ships To Brooke The Sea, Only With One Man To Steer Them, And They Shall Sail Far More Swiftly Than If They Were Full Of Men; Also Chariots That Shall Move With Unspeakable Force Without Any Living Creature To Stir Them. Likewise An Instrument May Be Made To Fly Withall If One Sits In The Midst Of The Instrument, And Do Turn An Engine, By Which The Wings, Being Artificially Composed, May Beat The Air After The Manner Of A Flying Bird.

The Calendar Is Intolerable To All Wisdom, The Horror Of All Astronomy, And A Laughing Stock From A Mathematician's Point Of View.

It Is Not Necessarily Impossible For Human Beings To Fly, But It So Happens That God Did Not Give Them The Knowledge Of How To Do It. It Follows, Therefore, That Anyone Who Claims That He Can Fly Must Have Sought The Aid Of The Devil. To Attempt To Fly Is Therefore Sinful.