s fantasticality is due. Yet
the concepts are not really disparate; for not only is the second
birth like unto the first, and not only is the resurrection unto glory
described as the Bridal Feast of the Lamb, but marriage is, in a manner,
a form of death and rebirth. To justify this in a crude sense, I might
say that, from the male standpoint at least, it is a giving of the
life-substance to the beloved that life may be born anew and increase.
But in a deeper sense it is, or rather should be, as an ideal, a mutual
sacrifice of self for each other's good--a death of the self that it may
arise with an enriched personality.

(1) See Mr WAITE'S _The Real History of the Rosicrucians_ (1887) for
translation and discussion as to origin and significance. The work was
first published (in German) at Strassburg in 1616.

It is when we come to an examination of the ideas at the root of, and
associated with, the alchemical concept of "principles," that we find
some difficulty in harmonising the two series of symbols--the mystical
and the phallic. In one place in the _Turba_ we are directed "to take
quicksilver, in which is the male potency or strength";(2a) and this
concept of mercury as male is quite in accord with the mystical origin
I have assigned in the preceding excursion to the doctrine of the
alchemical principles. I have shown, I think, that salt, sulphur, and
mercury are the analogues _ex hypothesi_ of the body, soul (affection
and volition), and spirit (intelligence or understanding) in man; and
the affections are invariably regarded as especially feminine, the
understanding as especially masculine. But it seems that the more common
opinion, amongst Latin alchemists at any rate, was that sulphur was
male and mercury female. Writes BERNARD of TREVISAN: "For the Matter
suffereth, and the Form acteth assimulating the Matter to itself, and
according to this manner the Matter naturally thirsteth after a Form,
as a Woman desireth an Husband, and a Vile thing a precious one, and
an impure a pure one, so also _Argent-vive_ coveteth a Sulphur, as that
which should make perfect which is imperfect: So also a Body
freely desireth a Spirit, whereby it may at length arrive at its
perfection."(1b) At the same time, however, Mercury was regarded as
containing in itself both male and female potencies--it was the product
of male and female, and, thus, the seed of all the metals. "Nothing in
the World can be generated," to repeat a quo