It will not be superfluous to mention here, that the so-called materials, substances, concepts, are found employed in the treatises of the alchemists in a more comprehensive sense, we can even say with more lofty implications, the more the author in question leans to philosophical speculation. The authors who indulged the loftiest flights were indeed most treasured by the alchemists and prized as the greatest masters. With them the concept mercury, as element concept, is actually separated from that of common quicksilver. On this level of speculation, quicksilver (Hg.) is no longer considered as a primal element, but as a suprasensible principle to which only the name of quicksilver, mercury, is loaned. It is emphasized that the _mercurius philosophorum_ may not be substituted for common quicksilver. Similar transmutations are effected by the concept of a primal element specially separated from mercury. Prima materia is the cause of all objects. Also the material from which the philosopher’s stone is produced is in later times called the prima materia, accordingly in a certain sense, the raw material (materia cruda) for its production. But I anticipate; this belongs properly to the occidental flourishing period of the alchemy of scholasticism. A very significant and ancient idea in alchemy is that of sprouting and procreation. Metals grow like plants, and reproduce like animals. We are assured by the adepts (those who had found it, viz., the panacea) in the Greek-Egyptian period and also later, that gold begets gold as the corn does corn, and man, man. The practice connected with this idea consists in putting some gold in the mixture that is to be transmuted. The gold dissolves like a seed in it and is to produce the fruit, gold. The gold ingredient was also conceived as a ferment, which permeates the whole mixture like a leaven, and, as it were, made it ferment into gold. Furthermore, the tincturing matter was conceived as male and the matter to be colored as female. Keeping in view the symbol of the corn and seed, we see that the matter into which the seed was put becomes earth and mother, in which it will germinate in order to come to fruition. In this connection belongs also the ancient alchemic symbol of the philosopher’s egg. This symbol is compared to the “Egyptian stone,” and the dragon, which bites its tail; consequently the procreation symbol is compared to an eternity or cycle symbol. The “Egyptian stone” is, however, the philosopher’s stone or, by metonomy, the great work (magnum opus) of its manufacture. The egg is the World Egg that recurs in so many world cosmogonies. The grand mastery refers usually and mainly to thoughts of world creation. The egg-shaped receptacle in which the master work was to be accomplished was also known as the “philosophical egg” in which the great masterpiece is produced. This vessel was sealed with the magic seal of Hermes; therefore hermetically sealed.