According to "PHILALETHES," the extraction of the seed is a very difficult process, accomplishable, however, by the aid of mercury--the water homogeneous therewith. Mercury, again, is the form of the seed thereby obtained. He writes: "When the sperm hidden in the body of gold is brought out by means of our Art, it appears under the form of Mercury, whence it is exalted into the quintessence which is first white, and then, by means of continuous coction, becomes red." And again: "There is a womb into which the gold (if placed therein) will, of its own accord, emit its seed, until it is debilitated and dies, and by its death is renewed into a most glorious King, who thenceforward receives power to deliver all his brethren from the fear of death."(1) (1) EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES: _The Metamorphosis of Metals_. (See _The Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. pp. 241 and 244.) The fifteenth-century alchemist THOMAS NORTON was peculiar in his views, inasmuch as he denied that metals have seed. He writes: "Nature never multiplies anything, except in either one or the other of these two ways: either by decay, which we call putrefaction, or, in the case of animate creatures, by propagation. In the case of metals there can be no propagation, though our Stone exhibits something like it.... Nothing can be multiplied by inward action unless it belong to the vegetable kingdom, or the family of sensitive creatures. But the metals are elementary objects, and possess neither seed nor sensation."(1) (1) THOMAS NORTON: _The Ordinal of Alchemy_. (See _The Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. pp. 15 and 16.) His theory of the origin of the metals is astral rather than phallic. "The only efficient cause of metals," he says, "is the mineral virtue, which is not found in every kind of earth, but only in certain places and chosen mines, into which the celestial sphere pours its rays in a straight direction year by year, and according to the arrangement of the metallic substance in these places, this or that metal is gradually formed."(2) (2) _Ibid_., pp. 15 and 16. In view of the astrological symbolism of these metals, that gold should be masculine, silver feminine, does not surprise us, because the idea of the masculinity of the sun and the femininity of the moon is a bit of phallicism that still remains with us. It was by the marriage of gold and silver that very many alchemists considered that the _magnum opus_ was to be achieved. Writes BERNARD of TREVISAN: "The subject of this admired Science (alchemy) is _Sol_ and _Luna_, or rather Male and Female, the Male is hot and dry, the Female cold and moyst." The aim of the work, he tells us, is the extraction of the spirit of gold, which alone can enter into bodies and tinge them. Both _Sol_ and _Luna_ are absolutely necessary, and "whoever...shall think that a Tincture can be made without these two Bodyes,... he proceedeth to the Practice like one that is blind."(1)