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SIANTON J. LINDLN (ed.), The Alchemy Reader: From Hermes Trismegistus to Isaac Newton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xxv + 260. ISBN 0-521-79662-8. £16.95, $24.00 (paperback).
doi :10.1017/S0007087405317274
'True it is, without falsehood, certain and most true. That which is above is like to that which is below, and that which is below is like to that which is above, to accomplish the miracles of one thing' (quoted in Linden, p. 28). So begins the evocative and influential Emerald Table of Hermes Trismegistus, written in the Graeco-Egyptian culture of the Alexandrian age, and employed and commented upon by innumerable authors since then, including Isaac Newton as he worked furiously to produce a philosophical mercury that would dissolve all metals including gold. Newton echoed and elaborated Hermes' text: 'The things that follow are most true. Inferior and superior, fixed and volatile, sulfur and quicksilver have a similar nature and are one thing, like man and wife. For they differ one from another only by the degree of digestion...