The Hermetic Art.
Any one that makes a thorough study of the alchemistic literature must be struck with the religious seriousness that prevails in the writings of the more important authors. Every “master” who enjoyed the highest honor among his fellows in the hermetic art has a certain lofty manner that keeps aloof from the detailed description of chemical laboratory work, although they do not depart from the alchemistic technical language. They obviously have a leaning toward some themes that are far more important than the production of a chemical preparation can be, even if this is a tincture with which they can tinge lead into gold. Looking forth to higher nobler things, these authors, whose homely language frequently touches our feelings deeply, make the reader notice that they have nothing in common with the sloppy cooks who boil their pots in chemical kitchens, and that the gold they write about is not the gold of the multitude; not the venal gold that they can exchange for money. Their language seems to sound as if they said, “Our gold is not of this world.” Indeed they use expressions that can with absolute clearness be shown to have this sense. Authors of this type did not weary of enjoining on the [pg 147] novices of the art, that belief, scripture and righteousness were the most important requisites for the alchemistic process. [With the sloppers it was indeed a prime question, how many and what kinds of stoves, retorts, kettles, crucibles, ores, fires, etc., in short, what necessary implements they needed, for the great work.]
He whose eyes are open needs no special hints to see, in reading, that the so-called alchemistic prescriptions did not center upon a chemical process. A faint notion of the circumstance that even in their beginnings, alchemistic theories were blended with cosmogonic and religious ideas, must make it quite evident that, for example, in the famous Smaragdine Tablet of Hermes [Its real author is unknown.] a noble pillar of alchemy, something more must be contained than a mere chemical recipe. The language of the Smaragdine tablet is notoriously the most obscure that the hermetic literature has produced; in it there are no clear recommendations to belief or righteousness; and yet I think that an unprejudiced reader, who was not looking specially for a chemical prescription, would perceive at least a feeling for something of philosophy or theology.
[1.] Verum, sine mendacio, certum et [verissimum]: [2.] Quod est inferius est sicut quod est superius, et quod est superius est sicut quod est inferius, ad perpetranda [also: penetranda, praeparanda] miracula rei unius. [3.] Et sicut res omnes fuerunt ab uno, meditatione unius: sic omnes res natae fuerunt ab hac una re, adaptatione [adoptione.]. [pg 148] [4.] Pater ejus est Sol, mater ejus est Luna. [5.] Portavit illud ventus in ventre suo. [6.] Nutrix ejus terra est. [7.] Pater omnis Telesmi totius mundi est hic. [8.] Virtus ejus integra est, si versa fuerit in terram. [9.] Separabis terram ab igne, subtile ab spisso, suaviter, magno cum ingenio. [10.] Ascendit a terra in coelum, iterumque descendit in terram, et recipit vim superiorum et inferiorum. [11.] Sic habebis Gloriam totius mundi. Ideo fugiet a te omnis obscuritas. Haec est totius fortitudinis fortitudo fortis, quia vincet omnem rem subtilem, omnemque solidam [solidum] penetrabit. [12.] Sic mundus creatus est. [13.] Hinc erunt adaptationes mirabiles, quarum modus est hic. [14.] Itaque vocatus sum Hermes Trismegistus, habens tres partes philosophiae totius mundi. [15.] Completum est quod dixi de operatione Solis.
Translation: [1.] It is true, without lies and quite certain. [2.] What is lower is just like what is higher, and what is higher is just like what is lower, for the accomplishment of the miracle of a thing. [3.] And just as all things come from one and by mediation of one, thus all things have been derived from this one thing by adoption. [4.] The father of it is the sun, the mother is the moon. [5.] The wind has carried it in his belly. [6.] The earth has nourished it. [7.] It is the father [cause] of all completion of the whole world. [8.] His power is undiminished, if it has been turned towards the earth. [9.] You will separate the earth from [pg 149] fire, the fine from the coarse, gently and with great skill. [10.] It ascends from the earth to the sky, again descends to the earth, and receives the powers of what is higher and what is lower. [11.] Thus you will have the glory of the whole world, and all darkness will depart from you. It is the strength of all strength, because it will conquer all the fine and penetrate all the solid. [12.] Thus the world was created. [13.] From this will be wonderful applications of which it is the pattern. [14.] And so I have been called Hermes, thrice greatest, possessing three parts of the knowledge of the whole world. [15.] Finished is what I have said about the work of the sun.
Sun and gold are identical in the hieroglyphic mode of expression. Whoever seeks only the chemical must therefore read: The work of gold, the production of gold; and that is what thousands and millions have read. The mere word gold was enough to make countless souls blind to everything besides the gold recipe that might be found in the Smaragdine tablet. But surely there were alchemistic masters who did not let themselves be blinded by the word gold and sympathetically carried out still further the language of the Smaragdine tablet. They were the previously mentioned lofty-minded men. The covetous crowd of sloppers, however, adhered to the gold of the Smaragdine tablet and other writings and had no appreciation of anything else. For a long time alchemy meant no more for modern historians.
The fact that modern chemical science is sprung from the hermetic works,—as the only branch at present clearly visible and comprehensible of this misty tree of knowledge,—has had for result that in looking back we have received a false impression. Chemical specialists have made researches in the hermetic art and have been caught just as completely in the tangle of its hieroglyphics as were the blind seekers of gold before them. The hermetic art, or alchemy in the wider sense, is not exclusively limited to gold making or even to primitive chemistry. It should, however, not be surprising to us who are acquainted with the philosophical presuppositions of alchemy, that in addition to the chemical and mechanical side of alchemy a philosophical and religious side also received consideration and care. I think, however, that such historical knowledge was not at all necessary to enable us to gather their pious views from the religious language of many masters of the hermetic art. However, this naïve childish logic was a closed book to the chemists who made historical researches. They were hindered by their special knowledge. It is far from my purpose to desire in the least to minimize the services that a Chevreul or a Kopp has performed for the history of chemistry; what I should like to draw attention to is merely that the honored fathers of the history of chemistry saw only the lower—“inferius”—and not the higher—“superius”—phase of alchemy, for example, in the Smaragdine tablet; and that they used it as the type of universal judgment in such a way that [pg 151] it needed a special faculty for discovery to reopen a fountain that had been choked up.
I now realize that the poets have been more fortunate than the scientists. Thus Wieland, who, for example, makes Theophron say in the Musarion (Book II):
The beautiful alone
Can be the object of our love.