"Fools understanding the sayings of the Philosophers according to the letter do find out no truth, and they say it is a false science because they have tried it and found nothing, and then they become as men desperate, condemning this science and dispraising the books thereof, and therefore the science maketh small account of them, because our science of the secrets of nature hath no enemy but the ignorant, according to these verses following:
This stone is had in small regard
With men of slender wit
But yet the wise and learned sort
Make great account of it."
— Arnaldus de Villa Nova
