For example in "The History of Transcendental Magic," by Eliphas Levi (Abbe Constant), translated by Arthur Edward Waite, there is a plate used to illustrate the author's theory of Alchemy, which he concludes "had two aspects, one a physical and the other a moral one." The sexual, as well as the spiritual, significance is ignored, but this may be due to a disinclination to reveal the secret meaning of the alchemical symbols, or it may be due to a materialistic tendency on the part of the compiler. The plates, however, speak for themselves, and in one, ascribed to Basil-Valentine, an alchemist of the Fifteenth century, called "The Great Hermetic Arcanum," the supreme and significant point of the illustration, shows, within the circle of Experience, through which the initiate travels in his search for the supreme god-head, two doves, holding in their beaks a crown. The doves are perfectly matched. The crown is balanced between them, and the figure tops the circle, under the heading "regeneration." In another plate, which the author presents as "the Philosophic Cross, or Plan of the Third Temple as prophesied by Ezekiel," we note again, that the crown of the symbolical temple represents the red rose upon a cross, within a radiant circle; beneath this is a mother-eagle with outstretched wings, shielding her little brood, and on either side a tree and a flowering rosebush. Here is the symbol par excellence of generation. The creative function of the male and the female in procreative conjunctivity. The employment of the eagle as a religious symbol may be traced back to the civilization of the Hittites. Only a few years ago, two English archaeologists discovered a double-headed eagle in Asia. This was identical with those seen perpetuating religious rites and ceremonies of the sex-worshipers. An eagle holding in its talons a serpent is an emblem well known today. The origin of the adoption of the eagle as a religious, though not necessarily a "sacred," symbol by prehistoric races, may easily be imagined, if we consider that the eagle is a bird of tremendous power; and that it soars to unreachable heights; and that it unquestionably was at some time seen to swoop down and carry off the serpent, possibly even during their ceremonies of serpent-worship. This idea becomes quite convincing when we also remember that the ceremonies of the serpent worshipers were carried on, as far as feasible, upon the mountain. We allude to this stage of religious history as "serpent worship," but when we realize the points of analogy between the serpent and the phallus it is apparent that the serpent was only the nature-emblem of generation, as manifested by the male principle.