First Sentence

"1. THE true and perspicuous explication of the elements of laws natural and politic (which is my present scope) dependeth upon the knowledge of what is human nature, what is body politic, and what it is we call a law; concerning which points, as the writings of men from antiquity downwards have still increased, so also have the doubts and controversies concerning the same: and seeing that true knowledge begetteth not doubt nor controversy, but knowledge, it is manifest from the present controversies, that they, which have heretofore written thereof, have not well understood their own subject."