Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 37.djvu/835

Rh in a somewhat sudden fashion made its appearance in the world, till the moment of the fall of the Roman Empire, we know very nearly what it was, but are hardly certain whence it came. The study of which we are about to give an account assigns for it a triple origin: the industrial processes of the ancient Egyptians, the speculative theories of the Greek philosophers, and the mystic reveries of the Alexandrines and Gnostics. This conclusion is derived from the attentive examination of documents that have not been studied before with this point in view; among which are Lepsius's memoir on the metals in antiquity, Egyptian papyruses in Paris and Leyden, and Greek manuscripts in the French National Library and St. Mark's Library in Venice. M. Berthelot has compared with these texts, on one side, the beliefs of the first alchemists concerning the origin of their art; and, on the other, their positive knowledge, as well as the theories accepted in the second and third centuries of the Christian era. The deductions from these different sources are quite concordant.

Zosimus the Panopolitan, "the oldest of authentic chemists," wrote, three hundred years after Christ, that "the Scriptures teach that there is a certain race of demons that have commerce with women. Hermes has spoken of them in his book on nature. The ancient and holy Scriptures relate that certain angels, smitten with love for women, came down upon the earth and taught them the works of nature; on this account, they were driven from heaven and condemned to perpetual exile. From this intercourse sprang the race of giants. The book in which they taught the arts is called Chema, whence the name Chema, which is applied to the most excellent art." This idea of sinning angels who revealed the occult arts and sciences to mortals, is found in several countries. It is "in harmony with the old biblical myth of the tree of knowledge placed in the garden, the fruit of which when eaten brought about the fall of man."

The Theban papyruses at Leipsic attribute the same mystical character—a kind of seal of its Eastern origin—to alchemy. It was Hermes Trismegistes who made known practical metallurgical processes, the hermetic science, the mysterious art of transmutation. The Egyptian priests, who were instructed in it, had to take an oath to keep the secret of it. This custom was preserved among the Neoplatonists and magicians of the fourth century and the alchemists of the middle ages and the Renaissance.

Many of the traditions held in honor among the alchemists seem to have been borrowed from the Theban priests. The number four was sacred with both. The philosopher's stone was called the Egyptian stone in the middle ages. The alchemic sign for water was the hieroglyph for that substance. The sign for tin, which has been transferred to the metal mercury, was also