ch prompts to union.' "(1a) KELLY, of course,
accepts the traditional authorship of the works from which he quotes,
though in many cases such authorship is doubtful, to say the least. The
alchemical works ascribed to ARISTOTLE (384-322 B.C.), for instance, are
beyond question forgeries. Indeed, the symbol of a union between brother
and sister, here quoted, could hardly be held as acceptable to Greek
thought, to which incest was the most abominable and unforgiveable sin.
It seems likelier that it originated with the Egyptians, to whom such
unions were tolerable in fact. The symbol is often met with in Latin
alchemy. MICHAEL MAIER (1568-1622) also says: "_conjunge fratrem cum
sorore et propina illis poculum amoris_," the words forming a motto to
a picture of a man and woman clasped in each other's arms, to whom an
older man offers a goblet. This symbolic picture occurs in his _Atalanta
Fugiens, hoc est, Emblemata nova de Secretis Naturae Chymica, etc_.
(Oppenheim, 1617). This work is an exceedingly curious one. It consists
of a number of carefully executed pictures, each accompanied by a motto,
a verse of poetry set to music, with a prose text. Many of the
pictures are phallic in conception, and practically all of them are
anthropomorphic. Not only the primary function of sex, but especially
its secondary one of lactation, is made use of. The most curious of
these emblematic pictures, perhaps, is one symbolising the conjunction
of gold and silver. It shows on the right a man and woman, representing
the sun and moon, in the act of coition, standing up to the thighs in a
lake. On the left, on a hill above the lake, a woman (with the moon as
halo) gives birth to a child. A boy is coming out of the water towards
her. The verse informs us that: "The bath glows red at the conception
of the boy, the air at his birth." We learn also that "there is a stone,
and yet there is not, which is the noble gift of God. If God grants it,
fortunate will be he who shall receive it."(1)

(1a) EDWARD KELLY: _The Stone of the Philosophers, Op. cit_., pp 13, 14,
33, 35, 36, 38-40, and 47.

(1) _Op. Cit_., p. 145

Concerning the nature of gold, there is a discussion in _The Answer of_
BERNARDUS TREVISANUS _to the Epistle of Thomas of Bononia_, with which
I shall close my consideration of the present aspect of the subject.
Its interest for us lies in the arguments which are used and held to be
valid. "Besides, you say that Gold, as most think