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 quotation from BERNARD, without these two Substances, to wit a Male and Female:  From whence it appeareth, that although these two substances are not of one and the same species, yet one Stone doth thence arise, and although they appear and are said to be two Substances, yet in truth it is but one, to wit, Argent-vive.  But of this Argent-vive a certain part is fixed and digested, Masculine, hot, dry and secretly informing.  But the other, which is the Female, is volatile, crude, cold, and moyst."[2b] EDWARD KELLY (1555-1595), who is valuable because he summarises authoritative opinion, says somewhat the same thing, though in clearer words:  “The active elements . . . these are water and fire . . . may be called male, while the passive elements . . . earth and air . . . represent the female principle....  Only two elements, water and earth, are visible, and earth is called the hiding-place of fire, water the abode of air.  In these two elements we have the broad law of limitation which divides the male from the female. . . .  The first matter of minerals is a kind of viscous water, mingled with pure and impure earth. . .  Of this viscous water and fusible earth, or sulphur, is composed that which is called quicksilver, the first matter of the metals.  Metals are nothing but Mercury digested by different degrees of heat."[1c] There is one difference, however, between these two writers, inasmuch as BERNARD says that “the Male and Female abide together in closed Natures; the Female truly as it were Earth and Water, the Male as Air and Fire.”  Mercury for him arises from the two former elements, sulphur from the two latter.[2c] And the difference is important as showing beyond question the a priori nature of alchemical reasoning.  The idea at the back of the alchemists’ minds was undoubtedly that of the ardour of the male in the act of coition and the alleged, or perhaps I should say apparent, passivity of the female.  Consequently, sulphur, the fiery principle of combustion, and such elements as were reckoned to be active, were denominated “male,” whilst mercury, the principle acted on by sulphur, and such elements as were reckoned to be passive, were denominated “female”.  As to the question of origin, I do not think that the palm can be denied to the mystical as distinguished from the phallic theory.  And in its final form the doctrine of principles is incapable of a sexual interpretation.  Mystically understood, man is capable of analysis into two principles—­since “body” may be neglected as unimportant