THE PATH OF EVOLUTION 



that the teachers of true knowledge had often been 

 the covetous, the credulous and the charlatan. 



Two pseudo sciences, astrology and alchemy, born 

 in delusions, nourished and raised chiefly by fraud 

 and superstition, have each given birth in their old 

 age to offspring respectively the wonder and the 

 pride of mankind ! The elder, astrology, born on 

 the plains of Chaldea more than 10,000 years ago, 

 was at an early date the parent of the worship of the 

 planets, of .which the sun was considered as being 

 one, and whose worship continues in some lands to 

 the present day. Astrology was looked upon as the 

 arbiter, disposer and revealer of man's destiny, and 

 was accepted as such by many of the greatest minds 

 as late as the seventeenth century. It was believed 

 in by Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Charles 

 the Fifth, Tycho-Brahe and Kepler. It was the 

 daily guide of Wallenstein ; even Napoleon had faith 

 in the stars. At last, in the seventeenth century, 

 when finally forsaken by nearly all, it left a daughter 

 Astronomy crowned with honor and glory, placed 

 at the summit of human achievement. 



Alchemy, the younger pseudo science, had a more 

 honorable origin. Born, as its name may seem to 

 indicate (Al-Khemi), in Egypt ; claiming its birth 

 from Trismegistus and the Hermetic books, and com- 

 ing from Arabia to Europe, the knowledge that it 



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