t yet observed the connection between sexual intercourse and birth.
They believed that conception was occasioned by the woman passing near
a _churinga_--a peculiarly shaped piece of wood or stone, in which a
spirit-child was concealed, which entered into her. But archaeological
research having established the fact that phallicism has, at one time
or another, been common to nearly all races, it seems probable that
the Arunta tribe represents a deviation from the normal line of mental
evolution. At any rate, an isolated phenomenon, such as this, cannot be
held to controvert the view that regards phallicism as in this normal
line. Nor was the attitude of mind that not only accepts sex at
face-value as an obvious fact, but uses the concept of it to explain
other facts, a merely transitory one. We may, indeed, not difficultly
trace it throughout the history of alchemy, giving rise to what I may
term "The Phallic Element in Alchemical Doctrine".

In aiming to establish this, I may be thought to be endeavouring to
establish a counter-thesis to that of the preceding essay on alchemy,
but, in virtue of the alchemists' belief in the mystical unity of all
things, in the analogical or correspondential relationship of all parts
of the universe to each other, the mystical and the phallic views of
the origin of alchemy are complementary, not antagonistic. Indeed, the
assumption that the metals are the symbols of man almost necessitates
the working out of physiological as well as mystical analogies, and
these two series of analogies are themselves connected, because the
principle "As above, so below" was held to be true of man himself. We
might, therefore, expect to find a more or less complete harmony between
the two series of symbols, though, as a matter of fact, contradictions
will be encountered when we come to consider points of detail. The
undoubtable antiquity of the phallic element in alchemical doctrine
precludes the idea that this element was an adventitious one, that
it was in any sense an afterthought; notwithstanding, however, the
evidence, as will, I hope, become apparent as we proceed, indicates that
mystical ideas played a much more fundamental part in the genesis of
alchemical doctrine than purely phallic ones--mystical interpretations
fit alchemical processes and theories far better than do sexual
interpretations; in fact, sex has to be interpreted somewhat mystically
in order to work out the analogies fully and satisf