Alchemy and the Alchemists.

Date:
[1850]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Alchemy and the Alchemists. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    ALCHEMY AND THE ALCHEMISTS. IN the case of a purely modern science, like geology or statistics, there can be little dispute and no mystery about its origin and progress. It I is analogous to the United States of America. Its history lies, first and last, j-under the eye of present daylight: hour after hour recorded by the press, i that'chronometer of recent ages. Such sciences as astrology and alchemy, on the other hand, ran their courses in the twilight of time, having taken ijfise in the starlit night of history. Resembling the nations of antiquity ifiln these respects, they resemble them also in tracing their orighi to giants, prophets, superhuman heroes, or demigods. This fabulous character of the early annals of those dark-age mysteries—for they were schemes of esoteric dogma rather than explicit fabrics of knowledge—is the first thing that flttracts the attention of the historical student of alchemy. The very etymology of the word is lost in hopeless obscurity. Scaliger ' says he saw a work in the king of France’s library, written in Greek, by ^ozimus the Panapolite, in the fifth century; and Olaus Borrichius seems to intimate that he also had read it, although it is in a somewhat ambiguous ♦passage that the hint occurs. They represent it as ‘ a faithful description of the sacred and divine art of making gold and silver.’ Borrichius gives what professes to be an extract from it, in which the writer first refers to a fact which he had managed to deduce from the Scriptures, Hermes Tris- megistus, and many other sources—namely, that there is a tribe of genii jfcossessed of an unhappy propensity to fall in love with women. ‘ The Ancient and divine Scriptures inforai us,’ he gravely assures the worthy Olaus, the learned Scaliger, and others his readers, ‘ that the angels, capti- vated by women, taught them all the operations of nature. Offence being taken at this, they remained out of heaven because they had taught man- kind aU manner of evil, and things which could not be advantageous to their souls. The Scriptures inform us that the giants sprang from these embraces. Chema is the first of the traditions respecting these arts. The book itself is called Chema; hence the art is called Chemia.’ ^ Even supposing for a moment that the preamble of this singular account 18 true, and that the ‘ Sons of God’ did impart many a primitive secret to the ‘ daughters of men,’ it is not easy to perceive how a tradition could also be a book; and there would remain for explanation the name of the book itself. Plutarch, however, asserts that Egypt was sometimes called ' Chemia, and Panapolis was an Egyptian city. It was, moreover, another 66 ^ \l