The Book it self is so short, that I need not detain the Reader any longer in the Preface... - Brook Taylor

Considering how few, and how simple the Principles are, upon which the whole Art of <small>PERSPECTIVE</small> depends, and withal how useful, nay how absolutely necessary this Art is to all forts of Designing; I have often wonder'd, that it has still been left in so low a degree of Perfection, as it is found to be, in the Books that have been hitherto wrote upon it.

There may be regular Methods also invented for teaching the Doctrine of Light and Shadow; and other Particulars relating to the Practical Part of Painting, may be improved and digested into proper Methods... But I only hint at these... recommending them to the Masters of the Art to reflect and improve upon.

The true and best way of learning any Art, is not to see a great many Examples done by another Person, but to possess ones self first of the Principles of it, and then to make them familiar, by exercising ones self in the Practice. For it is Practice alone, that makes a Man perfect in any thing.