Witch, Warlock, and Magician

Witch, Warlock, and Magician - Historical Sketches of Magic and Witchcraft in England and Scotland

The word from which we derive our English word chemistryfirst occurs, it is said, in the Lexicon of Suidas, a Greek writer who flourished in the eleventh century. Here is his definition of it: Some authorities assert, however, that this art, or pretended art, is of much greater antiquity than Suidas knew of; and Scaliger refers to a Greek manuscript by Zozomen, of the fifth century, which is entitled A Faithful Description of the Secret and Divine Art of Making Gold and Silver. We may assume that as soon as mankind had begun to set an artificial value upon these metals, and had acquired [Pg 2] some knowledge of chemical elements, their combinations and permutations, they would entertain a desire to multiply them in measureless quantities. Dr. Shaw speaks of no fewer than eighty-nine ancient manuscripts, scattered through the European libraries, which are all occupied with the chemical art, or the holy art, or, as it is sometimes called, the philosophers stone; and a fair conclusion seems to be that between the fifth century and the taking of Constantinople in the fifteenth, the Greeks believed in the possibility of making gold and silver, and called the supposed process, or processes, chemistry. The delusion was taken up by the Arabians when, under their Abasside Khalifs, they entered upon the cultivation of scientific knowledge. The Arabians conveyed it into Spain, whence its diffusion over Christendom was a simple work of time, sure if gradual. From the eleventh to the sixteenth century, alchemy was more or less eagerly studied by the scholars of Germany, Italy, France, and England; and the volumes in which they recorded both their learning and their ignorance, the little they knew and the more they did not know, compose quite a considerable library. One hundred and twenty-two are enumerated in the Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa, of Mangetus, a dry-as-dust kind of compilation, in two huge volumes, printed at Geneva in 1702. Any individual who has time and patience to expend ad libitum, cannot desire a fairer field of exercise than the Bibliotheca. One very natural result of all this vain research and profitless inquiry was a keen anxiety on the part of [Pg 3] victims to dignify their labours by claiming for their sciences, falsely so-called, a venerable and mysterious origin. They accordingly asserted that the founder or creator was Hermes Trismegistus, whom some of them professed to identify with Chanaan, the son of Ham, whose son Mizraim first occupied and peopled Egypt. Now, it is clear that any person might legitimately devote his nights and days to the pursuit of a science invented, or originally taught, by no less illustrious an ancient than Hermes Trismegistus. But to clothe it with the awe of a still greater antiquity, they affirmed that its principles had been discovered, engraved in Phnician characters, on an emerald tablet which Alexander the Great exhumed from the philosophers tomb. Unfortunately, as is always the case, the tablet was lost; but we are expected to believe that two Latin versions of the inscription had happily been preserved. One of these may be Englished as hereinunder: ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 38763
Author: Adams, W. H. Davenport (William Henry Davenport)
Release Date: Feb 4, 2012
Format: eBook
Language: English