It is when we come to an examination of the ideas at the root of, and associated with, the alchemical concept of "principles," that we find some difficulty in harmonising the two series of symbols--the mystical and the phallic. In one place in the _Turba_ we are directed "to take quicksilver, in which is the male potency or strength";(2a) and this concept of mercury as male is quite in accord with the mystical origin I have assigned in the preceding excursion to the doctrine of the alchemical principles. I have shown, I think, that salt, sulphur, and mercury are the analogues _ex hypothesi_ of the body, soul (affection and volition), and spirit (intelligence or understanding) in man; and the affections are invariably regarded as especially feminine, the understanding as especially masculine. But it seems that the more common opinion, amongst Latin alchemists at any rate, was that sulphur was male and mercury female. Writes BERNARD of TREVISAN: "For the Matter suffereth, and the Form acteth assimulating the Matter to itself, and according to this manner the Matter naturally thirsteth after a Form, as a Woman desireth an Husband, and a Vile thing a precious one, and an impure a pure one, so also _Argent-vive_ coveteth a Sulphur, as that which should make perfect which is imperfect: So also a Body freely desireth a Spirit, whereby it may at length arrive at its perfection."(1b) At the same time, however, Mercury was regarded as containing in itself both male and female potencies--it was the product of male and female, and, thus, the seed of all the metals. "Nothing in the World can be generated," to repeat a quotation from BERNARD, without these two Substances, to wit a Male and Female: From whence it appeareth, that although these two substances are not of one and the same species, yet one Stone doth thence arise, and although they appear and are said to be two Substances, yet in truth it is but one, to wit, _Argent-vive_. But of this _Argent-vive_ a certain part is fixed and digested, Masculine, hot, dry and secretly informing. But the other, which is the Female, is volatile, crude, cold, and moyst."(2b) EDWARD KELLY (1555-1595), who is valuable because he summarises authoritative opinion, says somewhat the same thing, though in clearer words: "The active elements... these are water and fire... may be called male, while the passive elements... earth and air... represent the female principle.... Only two elements, water and earth, are visible, and earth is called the hiding-place of fire, water the abode of air. In these two elements we have the broad law of limitation which divides the male from the female. ... The first matter of minerals is a kind of viscous water, mingled with pure and impure earth... Of this viscous water and fusible earth, or sulphur, is composed that which is called quicksilver, the first matter of the metals. Metals are nothing but Mercury digested by different degrees of heat."(1c) There is one difference, however,