isis unveiled: chapter chapter VI (seeds of truth)

"Professor Sterry Hunt says in one of his lectures: "The alchemists sought in vain for a universal solvent; but we now know that water, aided in some cases by heat, pressure, and the presence of certain widely-distributed substances, such as carbonic acid and akaline carbonates and sulphides, will dissolve the most insoluble bodies; so that [...]

isis unveiled: chapter chapter VI (seeds of truth)

"The objection that might be made by Professor Cooke, in behalf of modern science, to the hermetic expressions, would equally apply to the Egyptian hieratic writings - they hide that which was meant to be concealed. If he would profit by the labors of the past, he must employ the cryptographer, and not the satirist. [...]

isis unveiled: chapter chapter VI (seeds of truth)

"Is Professor Cooke, so eminent in modern chemistry, equally proficient in the knowledge of what the alchemists did or did not know? Is he quite sure that he understands the meaning of the alchemical diction? We are not. But let us compare his views as above expressed with but sentences written in plain and good, [...]