"He (Drebbel) stressed his independence also within his natural philosophy, presenting himself as an enthusiastic author writing for enthusiastic readers. Both Drebbel’s writing of his book, On the Nature of the Elements, and the reader’s reading of it required personal discovery. He included a special demonstration, the subject of the only illustration in the text, which he encouraged the reader to reconstruct for himself in order, as Drebbel said, to understand his theory better than he could express it in words."
Dr. V Keller, Cornelis Drebbel (1572-1633): Fame and the making of Modernity, 2008
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