Her me site

[Gr. Hermes, mercury.] ( Min.) A variety of TETRAHEDRITE, q. v., containing mercury. Her'mes Trismegistus, a supposed Egyptian priest and philosopher, the friend and counsellor of Osiris, and the first lawgiver and founder of religious ceremonies in Egypt. He taught the Egyptians to cultivate the olive and measure land; the science of hieroglyphics; and to him are also attributed all the mystic pursuits that afterwards made the Alexandrian school so famous. The works extant under the name of Hermes are: Poeman der, on the Power and Wisdom of God; Asclepius, a Dia logue on the Deity, Mankind, and the World; and some others supposed to be of le antiquity than these, and all alike regarded as supposititious. Their value, however, will be found very great in any attempt to determine the history of philosophy. In all likelihood the name belongs to two distinct persons, the later of whom was an Egyptian philosopher and legislator, and the earlier a deification (called Thoor or Thoth by the Egyptians, Thoyth by the Alexandrians, and Hermes by the Greeks) of all the ancient philosophy and instruction of that mysterious country.