y means of our Art, it appears under the form
of Mercury, whence it is exalted into the quintessence which is first
white, and then, by means of continuous coction, becomes red." And
again: "There is a womb into which the gold (if placed therein) will, of
its own accord, emit its seed, until it is debilitated and dies, and
by its death is renewed into a most glorious King, who thenceforward
receives power to deliver all his brethren from the fear of death."(1)

(1) EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES: _The Metamorphosis of Metals_. (See _The
Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. pp. 241 and 244.)

The fifteenth-century alchemist THOMAS NORTON was peculiar in his views,
inasmuch as he denied that metals have seed. He writes: "Nature never
multiplies anything, except in either one or the other of these two
ways: either by decay, which we call putrefaction, or, in the case of
animate creatures, by propagation. In the case of metals there can be no
propagation, though our Stone exhibits something like it.... Nothing
can be multiplied by inward action unless it belong to the vegetable
kingdom, or the family of sensitive creatures. But the metals are
elementary objects, and possess neither seed nor sensation."(1)

(1) THOMAS NORTON: _The Ordinal of Alchemy_. (See _The Hermetic Museum_,
vol. ii. pp. 15 and 16.)

His theory of the origin of the metals is astral rather than phallic.
"The only efficient cause of metals," he says, "is the mineral virtue,
which is not found in every kind of earth, but only in certain places
and chosen mines, into which the celestial sphere pours its rays in a
straight direction year by year, and according to the arrangement of
the metallic substance in these places, this or that metal is gradually
formed."(2)

(2) _Ibid_., pp. 15 and 16.

In view of the astrological symbolism of these metals, that gold should
be masculine, silver feminine, does not surprise us, because the idea
of the masculinity of the sun and the femininity of the moon is a bit
of phallicism that still remains with us. It was by the marriage of gold
and silver that very many alchemists considered that the _magnum opus_
was to be achieved. Writes BERNARD of TREVISAN: "The subject of this
admired Science (alchemy) is _Sol_ and _Luna_, or rather Male and
Female, the Male is hot and dry, the Female cold and moyst." The aim of
the work, he tells us, is the extraction of the spirit of gold, which
alone can enter into bodies and tinge them. Bo