ABSTRACT
We do not delay, therefore, to ascertain, even were it possible, whether the Hermetic Science was indeed preserved to mankind on the Syriadic pillars after the flood, or whether Egypt or Palestine may lay equal claims to the same; or, whether in truth that Smaragdine table, whose singular inscription has been transmitted to this day, is attributable to Hermes or to any other name. It may suffice the present need to accept the general assertion of its advocates, and consider Alchemy as an antique artifice coeval, for aught we know to the contrary, with the universe itself. For although attempts have been made, as by Herman Conringius,l to slight it as recent invention, and it is also true that by a singularly envious fate, nearly all Egyptian record of the art has perished; yet we find the original evidence contained in the works of A. Kircher,2 the learned Dane Olaus Borrichius,3 and Robert Vallensis in the first volume of the Theatrum Chemicum,4. more than sufficient to balance every objection of this kind, besides ample collateral probability bequeathed in the best Greek Authors, historical and philosophic.
