The Later Chain of Hermes

The Greek and Arabian tradition, represented by probable translations and commemorating eastern Masters of the Art who were in the main matters of legend, began to be replaced in the West by records of research on the spot, though put forward too often under the disguise of false names. To the extent that this rule obtains, we have finished with one class of pseudonyms but open another series, in which great doctors of the Church like Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas, not to speak of a Sovereign Pontiff, are brought into that which I have denominated the later Chain of Hermes. But we meet also with personalities who are responsible under their proper designations for that which they affirm and claim. At the head of the list there stands the illustrious name of Roger Bacon, of whom it may be true to say that his real greatness has only emerged recently from the penumbra of the middle ages. From Bacon to Arnoldus de Villanova and the mysterious Raymond Lully—another unknown master assuming the vestures of him who was doctor illuminatus and apostle to the Moors of North Africa—from Lully to the two Isaacs of Holland the story moves, to be followed by Basil Valentine and Paracelsus, after the account of a famous invention which stands apart from all others in the romance-annals of Alchemy. We shall hear also in passing some of a few lesser voices which bore their witness through the centuries in the choir of adeptship.