Quia versimilius hoc de filio, matria artium promulgatore, quam si ea superstite scribere fingeretur. Sed et hoc innuere volebam, imperita experientia, seu medicurum usu loquedndi, emperica exercitatione genitrice nasci prolem Scientam, atque illi non tutum esse, quam diu superest inter homines mater Ignorantia, rerum causas occultissimas in vulgus propalare; quin potius parcendum verecundiae antiquitatis, exspectandam annorum maturitatem, qua veluti senio confecta Ignorantia tandem emoriatur. Cum igitur Somnii mei scopus sit, argumentum pro motu Terrae, seu solutionem potius objectionum ab universali contradictione gentis humanae desumtarum moliri exemplo Lunae, iam tunc exstinctam satis arbitrabar exque memoria ingeniosorum hominem eradicatam veterem hanc Ignorantium, etsi quidem luctatur etiamnum anima in nexu artuum tam multorum, tot seculis firmissime coalito, superestque in academiis annosa mater, sed ita vivit, ut mors ei vita felicior aestimanda videatur.

Because this is more likely for a son divulging his mothers arts, [rather] than writing while she was alive. But I also wanted to imply that unskilled experience, or in medical terms empirical practice, is the mother that gives birth to the child Science; and he is not safe as long as his mother Ignorance remains among the people to explain secret things. But rather, he should spare her ancient modesty, and wait for her mature years, until Ignorance finally dies of old age. The purpose of my Dream is to take the example of the Moon as proof of the motion of the Earth, rather than to resolve objections from the universal opposition of the human race. The ancient Ignorance was already dead enough, I thought, and erased from the memories of clever men; but it struggles for life in the many tangled knots tied together over the ages. The wrinkled old mother survives in the universities, but such a life that it seems that death would be better.

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