ercury, salt,--must be cited as
the outstanding product of the combined influence of mysticism and
scholasticism: of mysticism, which postulated the unity of the Cosmos,
and hence taught that everything natural is the expressive image and
type of some supernatural reality; of scholasticism, which taught men
to rely upon deduction and to restrict experimentation to the smallest
possible limits.

The mind naturally proceeds from the known, or from what is supposed to
be known, to the unknown. Indeed, as I have already indicated, it must
so proceed if truth is to be gained. Now what did the men of the Middle
Ages regard as falling into the category of the known? Why, surely, the
truths of revealed religion, whether accepted upon authority or upon
the evidence of their own experience. The realm of spiritual and moral
reality: there, they felt, they were on firm ground. Nature was a realm
unknown; but they had analogy to guide, or, rather, misguide them.
Nevertheless if, as we know, it misguided, this was not, I think,
because the mystical doctrine of the correspondence between the
spiritual and the natural is unsound, but because these ancient seekers
into Nature's secrets knew so little, and so frequently misapplied what
they did know. So alchemical philosophy arose and became systematised,
with its wonderful endeavour to perfect the base metals by the
Philosopher's Stone--the concentrated Essence of Nature,--as man's soul
is perfected through the life-giving power of JESUS CHRIST.

I want, in conclusion to these brief introductory remarks, to say a
few words concerning phallicism in connection with my topic. For some
"tender-minded"(1) and, to my thought, obscure, reason the subject is
tabooed. Even the British Museum does not include works on phallicism
in its catalogue, and special permission has to be obtained to consult
them. Yet the subject is of vast importance as concerns the origin
and development of religion and philosophy, and the extent of phallic
worship may be gathered from the widespread occurrence of obelisks and
similar objects amongst ancient relics. Our own maypole dances may be
instanced as one survival of the ancient worship of the male generative
principle.

(1) I here use the term with the extended meaning Mr H. G. WELLS has
given to it. See _The New Machiavelli_.

What could be more easy to understand than that, when man first
questioned as to the creation of the earth, he should suppose it