" God challengeth this at our handes, to be honored as God:
to be loued, as a father: to be feared as a Lord & master. Our
neighbours proportion, is also prescribed of the Almighty lawmaker:
which is, to do to other, euen as we would be done vnto. These
proportions, are in Iustice necessary: in duety, commendable: and of
Common wealthes, the life, strength, stay and florishing. _Aristotle_ in
his _Ethikes_ (to fatch the sede of Iustice, and light of direction, to
vse and execute the same) was fayne to fly to the perfection, and power
of Numbers: for proportions Arithmeticall and Geometricall. _Plato_ in
his booke called _Epinomis_ (which boke, is the Threasury of all his
doctrine) where, his purpose is, to seke a Science, which, when a man
had it, perfectly: he might seme, and so be, in dede, _Wise_. He,
briefly, of other Sciences discoursing, findeth them, not hable to bring
it to passe: But of the Science of Numbers, he sayth. _Illa, quae
numerum mortalium generi dedit, id profecto efficiet. Deum autem
aliquem, magis quam fortunam, ad salutem nostram, hoc munus nobis
arbitror contulisse. &c. Nam ipsum bonorum omnium Authorem, cur non
maximi boni, Prudentiae dico, causam arbitramur? +That Science, verely,
which hath taught mankynde number, shall be able to bryng it to passe.
And, I thinke, a certaine God, rather then fortune, to haue giuen vs
this gift, for our blisse. For, why should we not Iudge him, who is the
Author of all good things, to be also the cause of the greatest good
thyng, namely, Wisedome?+_ There, at length, he proueth _Wisedome_ to be
atteyned, by good Skill of _Numbers_. With which great Testimony, and
the manifold profes, and reasons, before expressed, you may be
sufficiently and fully persuaded: of the perfect Science of
_Arithmetike_, to make this accounte: That

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of all Sciences, next to _Theologie_, it is most diuine, most pure, most
ample and generall, most profounde, most subtile, most commodious and
most necessary. Whose next Sister, is the Absolute Science of
_Magnitudes_: of which (by the Direction and aide of him, whose
_Magnitude_ is Infinite, and of vs Incomprehensible) I now entend, so to
write, that both with the _Multitude_, and also with the _Magnitude_ of
Meruaylous and frutefull verities, you (my frendes and Countreymen) may
be stird vp, and awaked, to behold what certaine Artes and Sciences, (to
our vnspeakable behofe) our heauenly father, hath for vs prepared, and
reue