(a false view, I think, by the way) or “soul” and “spirit” may be united under one head—­OR into three; whereas the postulation of THREE principles on a sexual basis is impossible.  JOANNES ISAACUS HOLLANDUS (fifteenth century) is the earliest author in whose works I have observed explicit mention of THREE principles, though he refers to them in a manner seeming to indicate that the doctrine was no new one in his day.  I have only read one little tract of his; there is nothing sexual in it, and the author’s mental character may be judged from his remarks concerning “the three flying spirits”—­taste, smell, and colour.  These, he writes, “are the life, soule, and quintessence of every thing, neither can these three spirits be one without the other, as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one, yet three Persons, and one is not without the other."[1d]

[2a] Mr WAITE’s translation, p. 79.

[1b] BERNARD, Earl of TREVISAN:  A Treatise of the Philosopher’s Stone, 1683. (See Collectanea Chymica:  A Collection of Ten Several Treatises in Chymistry, 1684, p. 92.)

[2b] Ibid., p. 91.

[1c] EDWARD KELLY:  The Stone of the Philosophers. (See The Alchemical Writings of EDWARD KELLY, edited by A. E. WAITE, 1893, pp. 9 and 11 to 13.)

[2c] The Answer of BERNARDUS TREVISANUS, to the Epistle of Thomas of Bononira, Physician to K. Charles the 8th. (See JOHN FREDERICK HOUPREGHT:  Aurifontina Chymica, 1680, p. 208.)

[1d] One Hundred and Fourteen Experiments and Cures of the Famous Physitian THEOPHRASTUS PARACELSUS. Whereunto is added . . . certain Secrets of ISAAC HOLLANDUS, concerning the Vegetall and Animall Work (1652), pp. 29 and 30.

When the alchemists described an element or principle as male or female, they meant what they said, as I have already intimated, to the extent, at least, of firmly believing that seed was produced by the two metallic sexes.  By their union metals were thought to be produced in the womb of the earth; and mines were shut in order that by the birth and growth of new metal the impoverished veins might be replenished.  In this way, too, was the magnum opus, the generation of the Philosopher’s Stone—­in species gold, but purer than the purest—­to be accomplished.  To conjoin that which Nature supplied, to foster the growth and development of that which was thereby produced; such was the task of the alchemist.  “For there are Vegetables,” says BERNARD of TREVISAN in his Answer to Thomas of Bononia, “but Sensitives more especially, which for the most part beget their like, by the Seeds of the Male and Female for the most part concurring and conmixt by copulation; which work of Nature the Philosophick Art imitates in the generation of gold."[1]

[1] Op. cit., p. 216.

Mercury, as I have said, was commonly regarded as the seed of the metals, or as especially the female seed, there being two seeds, one the male, according to BERNARD, more ripe, perfect and active, the other the female. “more immature and in a sort passive[2] “. . . our Philosophick Art,” he says in another place, following a description of the generation of man, " . . . is like this procreation of Man; for as in Mercury (of which Gold is by Nature generated in Mineral Vessels) a natural conjunction