69 



When, during the early centuries of the 

 Christian era, the traditions of Greece found a new 

 home in lower Egypt, and especially in Alexandria, 

 they were profoundly influenced by the still more 

 ancient philosophy of the East. We have already 

 remarked this in the case of another science, that of 

 physiognomy, but the same influence may also be 

 traced in the modification it brought to the notions 

 of primitive chemistry. The Chaldseans and 

 Persians had long believed that the heavens in- 

 fluenced the earth, and were capable of producing 

 strange effects in the lower spheres of being. 1 Their 

 wise men considered that an individual connection 

 could be established between the stars and the 

 elements, the planets and the metals. It was in 

 contact with this new doctrine and under its in- 

 fluence that there arose the hope, soon hardening 

 into a settled belief, that the rules of art might be 

 sufficient to effect an actual transmutation of the 

 baser into the nobler metals, of copper into gold, 

 and of tin or lead into silver. 



This opinion must have been immensely 

 heightened, and its authority reinforced, by the 

 secrecy with which the receipts for alloying 

 metals were guarded. These were handed down 

 orally from father to son ; were not committed to 

 writing till a comparatively late period, and even 

 then remained for the most part the cherished 

 treasures of temple guilds. On the well-known 

 principle of the proverb, ' Omne ignotum pro mag- 

 nifico' this secrecy tended to confirm the impres- 

 sion that, however much had been communicated, 



1 See Chwolson, Die SsaMer und der Ssabismiis. The Egyptians 

 extended this correspondence to the members of the human body. 



