ALBERTUS MAGNUS
_Bibliography_
His own writings--His life--His relations to natural science.
I. _Life_
Albert the leading figure in thirteenth century
learning--Albert and Aquinas--Dates of birth and
death--Early life--Probable early date of some
of his works--Events of his life after 1250--At
Cologne--Contemporary estimates of Albert.
II. _As a Scientist_
The scope of his scientific treatises--Can a gradual
intellectual development be traced in his works?--His
best works are those on natural science--His fame in
the early nineteenth century--A survival of medieval
attitude--Recent historians of science and Albert--His
scientific spirit--Philosophical generalization and
scientific detail--Medieval interest in nature--Albert’s
own attitude--Albert and modern experimentation--Personal
observation and experience of plants--Experience a
criterion in zoology--Observations of Albert and his
associates--Experiments with animals--Past authors
questioned--Instances of credulity--Incredible
“experiences”--Minerals and experience--Minerals and
credulity--Tale of a toad and an emerald--Experience versus
Aristotle.
III. _His Allusions to Magic_
Peter of Prussia on Albert’s occult science--Trithemius
on Albert’s study of magic--_Magnus in magia_--Albert’s
varying treatment of magic--Reality of magic--Magic due to
demons--Magic and miracle--Good magic of the Magi--Natural
magic--Attitude in his scientific treatises--Use of animals
and herbs in magic--Magic stones--Magic images engraved on
gems--Magic and alchemy; finding hidden metals--Fascination
and magic--Interpretation of dreams and magic--Magic and
divination--Summary of Albert’s accounts of magic.
IV. _Marvelous Virtues in Nature_
Properties of the lion--Nasty recipes: illusory
lights--Dragons--The basilisk--Remedies for falcons
and mad dogs--Habits and remedies of animals--The
virtues of herbs--Their medicinal use--Occult
virtue of herbs due to the stars--Occult virtue
of stones--Occult virtue of stones due to the
stars--Pseudo-Albert _De lapidibus_--Alchemy--Works of
alchemy ascribed to Albert--A more detailed description
of one of them: preface--Experimental method and
equipment--Differences between transmuted and natural
metals--Substances and processes of alchemy--Ligatures and
suspensions--Incantations--Fascination--Physiognomy--Aristotle
on divination from dreams--Albert on divination from
dreams--Augury.
V. _Attitude Toward Astrology_
Emphasis on the influence of the stars--Problem of the
authorship of the _Speculum astronomiae_--Mandonnet fails
to prove Albert hostile to astrology--Nature of the heavens
and the stars--The First Cause and the spheres--Things on
earth ruled by the stars--Conjunctions--Comets--Man and the
stars--Free will--Ptolemy on free will--Nativities--Galen
on the stars and human generation--Plato on boys and the
stars--The doctrine of elections--Influence of the stars on
works of art--Astrological images--Discussion of fate in the
_Summa theologiae_--Attempt to reconcile the Fathers with
the astronomers--Glossing over Augustine--Christ and the
stars--Patristic arguments against astrology upheld, but
perhaps not by Albert.
_Bibliography Concerning Albertus Magnus_
In the following bibliography I include some works that I have not
been able to examine and cannot vouch for, and omit others which I
have seen but which seemed of doubtful value or treated sides of
Albert’s personality and writings which have little connection with our
investigation, such as accounts of Albert as a saint, or theologian,
or metaphysician, or psychologist. Of recent years a bewildering
underbrush of German monographs has sprung up concerning Albert as one
of the few prominent persons that Germany could claim as its own among
the many scholars of the medieval period.
A number of works that do not deal primarily with Albert will be
cited in the course of the chapter rather than here, and mention of
his individual works and of manuscripts of them will also be found in
connection with the following text.
I. _His Own Writings_
M. Weiss. Primordia novae bibliographiae B. Alberti Magni,
Paris, 1898.
B. Alberti Magni Opera omnia, ed. Augustus Borgnet, Paris,
1890-1899, in 38 vols. My references are regularly to
this edition. Its text, however, has been a good deal
criticized.
Of more recent and critical editions of single works by
Albert, that of the Historia animalium by H. Stadler
from the Cologne autograph MS in Beiträge z. Gesch. d.
Philos, d. Mittelalters, vols. 15-16, is the only one
of a work with which we are concerned. Stadler attempts
to distinguish Albert’s additions from Aristotle’s
text and to trace their sources. German criticism
of the genuineness of large portions of the text of
Aristotle’s Historia animalium has in my opinion been
carried altogether too far and based upon the gratuitous
assumption that Aristotle would not have said anything
superstitious. For recent editions of other single works
by Albert see v. Hertling (1914) 23.
Separate bibliographies of printed texts and MSS of certain
works of doubtful or spurious authorship ascribed to
Albert will be given later in separate chapters dealing
with these.
II. _His Life_
Articles in the Histoire Littéraire de la France, XIX,
362-81, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, and by Mandonnet in
Vacant and Mangenot’s Dictionnaire de théologie catholique.
Petrus de Prussia, Vita B. Alberti Magni, 1621; von Hertling
mentions an earlier edition of Cologne, 1496, which I have
not seen.
Joachim Sighart, Albertus Magnus: sein Leben und seine
Wissenschaft, Ratisbon, 1857. (French translation, Paris,
1862). (English translation by Dixon, London, 1876, is
incomplete and garbled.)
N. Thoemes, Albertus Magnus in Geschichte und Sage, Cologne,
1880.
G. von Hertling, Albertus Magnus: Beiträge zu seiner
Würdigung, 2nd edition, revised with the help of Baeumker
and Endres, Münster, 1914, in Beiträge z. Gesch. d.
Philos, etc., vol. XIV.
Paul von Loë, De vita et scriptis B. Alberti Magni, in
Annal. Boland., XIX (1900) 257-84, XX (1901) 273-316, XXI
(1902) 361-71.
Kritische Streifzüge auf dem Gebiete der Albertus Magnus
Forschung, in Annalen d. hist. Vereins f. d. Niederrhein,
Cologne, vol. 72 (1902) 115-26.
E. Michael, Albert der Grosse, in Zeitsch, f. kath. Theol.,
Innsbruck, XXV (1901) 37-; Wann ist Albert der Grosse
geboren? _Ibid._ XXXV (1911) 561-.
P. P. Albert, Zur Lebensgeschichte Alberts des Grossen, in
Freiburg. Dioces. Archiv, 1902.
J. A. Endres, Das Geburtsjahr und die Chronologie in der
ersten Lebenshälfte Alberts des Grossen, in Historisches
Jahrbuch, XXXI (1910) 293-.
Eine beabsichtigte zweite Berufung Alberts des Grossen
an die Universität Paris um Jahr 1268, in Hist.-polit.
Blätter, vol. 152 (1913) 749-.
Chronolog. Untersuchungen z. d. philos Kommentaren Alberts
des Grossen, in Festgabe 70 Geburtstag von G. Freiherr von
Hertling, Freiburg, 1913, p. 96-.
A. Pangerl, Studien über Albert den Grossen, in Zeitschrift
für katholische Theologie, XXXVI (1912) 304-31, 332-46,
512-49, 784-800.
P. Pelster, S. J., Kritische Studien zum Leben und zu den
Schriften Alberts des Grossen, Freiburg, 1920: I have not
been able to procure in time to utilize, but it seems in
large measure a re-examination of ground already covered.
III. _His Relations to Natural Science_
E. H. F. Meyer, Albertus Magnus, ein Beitrag zur Geschichte
der Botanik im XIII Jahrhundert, in Linnaea, 1836-1837.
F. A. Pouchet, Histoire des sciences naturelles au moyen
âge, ou Albert le Grand et son époque considéré comme
point de départ de l’école expérimentale, Paris, 1853; pp.
203-320 deal particularly with Albert.
L. Choulant, Albertus Magnus in seiner Bedeutung für die
Naturwissenschaften, historisch und bibliograpisch
dargestellt, in Janus, I (1846) 152-.
E. v. Martens, Ueber die von Albertus Magnus erwähnten
Landsäugethiere, in Archiv f. Naturgesch. XXIV (1858)
123-44.
C. Jessen, Alberti magni historia animalium, in Archiv f.
Naturgesch. XXXIII (1867) 95-105.
R. de Liechty, Albert le Grand et saint Thomas d’Aquin, ou
la science au moyen âge, Paris, 1880.
A. Fellner, Albertus Magnus als Botaniker, Vienna, 1881.
H. Stadler, Albertus Magnus als selbständiger Forscher, in
dem Vordergrund des Interesses gestellt; in Forschungen z.
Gesch. Bayerns, XIV (1906) 95-.
J. Wimmer, Deutsches Pflanzenleben nach Albertus Magnus,
etc. Halle, 1908.
S. Killermann, Die Vogelkunde bei Albertus Magnus,
Regensburg, 1910.
I. _Life_
[Sidenote: The leading figure in thirteenth century learning.]
At last we come to the consideration of the dominant figure in Latin
learning and natural science of the thirteenth century, with whose
course his lifetime was nearly coincident, the most prolific of
its writers, the most influential of its teachers, the dean of its
scholars, the one learned man of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
to be called “the Great,”--Albertus Magnus. The length of his life
and presumably also of his period of literary productivity makes it
difficult to place him at any particular point in the century, and from
the fact that Vincent of Beauvais and Peter of Spain cite him we might
well have placed our account of his works before theirs. He appears,
however, to have outlived them both. But it is mainly in order to bring
our account of Albert into juxtaposition with our treatment of the
other two great names of Thomas Aquinas and Roger Bacon, to determine
whether the _Speculum astronomiae_ should be ascribed to Roger rather
than Albert, and to treat of books of experiments and magic, that have
been ascribed to Albert but are perhaps of somewhat later date, in
connection with other similar experimental and occult literature, that
we have postponed our consideration of Albertus Magnus until this point.
[Sidenote: Albert and Aquinas.]
In 1253, the same year that Robert Grosseteste died, four years after
William of Auvergne, opened the pontificate of Alexander IV, of which
Ptolemy of Lucca wrote: “In his time flourished two great doctors
in the Order of Preachers. Doubtless many others were famous during
this same time both in life and doctrine. But these two transcended
and deserve to be placed before all others.”[1692] The two Dominicans
whom Ptolemy had in mind were, of course, Albertus Magnus and Thomas
Aquinas.[1693] It is customary and natural to couple their names.
Besides being members of the same order, they were master and student;
they were also the two scholars of their time who did most to adapt
the natural philosophy of Aristotle to Christian use, a fact which in
itself suggests their interest in natural science. It may seem strange
to us today that two theologians, and even more so two members of an
order vowed to asceticism, apostolic poverty, and the maintenance
of strict orthodoxy against heresy, should play a leading part in
interpreting the ideas of Greek and Arabic philosophers and should
display such an interest in natural science. The fact, however, is
indisputable. It is to the credit of the medieval church and its
religious orders. But it is even more a tribute to the power that
philosophy and natural science exercise upon every able mind that
really studies them. As for the relations between Albert and Aquinas,
it must be added that while the former outlived his pupil, he was born
a full generation before him. It was thus Aquinas who profited by and
built upon Albert’s work.
[Sidenote: Dates of birth and death.]
Ptolemy of Lucca states that Albertus Magnus was over eighty years
old when he died in 1280, and that for about three years before his
death he largely lost control of his intellectual faculties.[1694]
That he outlived his pupil Aquinas by six years, and that his writings
are cited by other contemporaries who died before he did--Vincent of
Beauvais and Petrus Hispanus, are other indications of his longevity.
There consequently seems little reason for questioning the traditional
date of his birth, 1193, although Pouchet has suggested 1205[1695]
and Father Mandonnet, more recently, 1206.[1696] The main argument
for placing his birth about 1206 is that a fourteenth century
chronicler[1697] states that he was only sixteen when he entered the
Dominican Order, while in the fifteenth century Peter of Prussia
asserts that Albert himself used to say that he had been in the Order
“from his very boyhood.”[1698] His birthplace was at Lauingen in Swabia
and he was the oldest son of the count of Bollstädt.
[Sidenote: Early life.]
Albert studied at Padua, where he tells us that in his youth he
saw a well which exhaled a deadly vapor,[1699] while at Venice he
beheld a royal figure painted by nature upon marble.[1700] He perhaps
entered the Dominican Order in 1222 or 1223. According to Peter of
Prussia,[1701] a few years later he was made reader or lecturer of the
friars at Cologne and “twice gloriously lectured on the _Sentences_.”
Then he was successively _Lector_ at Hildesheim in 1233, at Freiburg,
for two years in Ratisbon, and at Strasburg. Albert alludes in his
works to a comet which he saw in Saxony in 1240.[1702]
[Sidenote: Probable early date of some of his works.]
Although Ptolemy of Lucca mentions Albert and Aquinas as flourishing
during the pontificate of Alexander IV, 1253-1261, much of the former’s
writing as well as teaching probably antedates this. Presumably he
was already famous when young Aquinas came all the way from Italy to
Cologne or Paris to study with him about 1244 or 1245. If the _Speculum
naturale_ of Vincent of Beauvais was written by 1250, many of Albert’s
writings which it freely cites must have appeared before that date, for
instance, the _De anima_ (III, 41), _De sensu et sensato_ (V. 108), _De
somno et vigilia_ (XXVI, 23), _De animalibus_ (XVII, 71). The treatise
on sleep and waking is found in a manuscript written in a French hand
in 1258.[1703] Even in the treatise on minerals,[1704] which has been
regarded as written after 1250 because Vincent of Beauvais does not
cite it, and in which Albert speaks of having been in Paris as well
as Cologne, he also speaks of one of his associates who saw in the
possession of the emperor, Frederick II, 1212-1250, a magnet which
instead of attracting iron was drawn to that metal.[1705] On the other
hand, in his work on animals Albert cites the emperor Frederick’s
book on falcons, so that Albert’s treatise on animals was probably not
finished until at least the latter part of that monarch’s reign.[1706]
But even Mandonnet who delays Albert’s birth to 1206 believes that
his first writings date back to 1240 and that his great philosophical
works began to appear about 1245. I should be inclined to push these
dates back ten or twenty years. Albert was probably teaching at Paris
from about 1245 to 1248, in which year he signed the condemnation of
the _Talmud_ in that city and then became regent of the new school at
Cologne established by the Dominicans.[1707]
[Sidenote: Events of his life after 1250.]
The two chief ecclesiastical offices held by Albert were those of
provincial of his order in Germany from 1254 to 1257, and of bishop
of Ratisbon, 1260-1262. He resigned from both positions, apparently
preferring the scholar’s life. Ptolemy of Lucca explains that German
bishops had to use the sword too much for Albert’s taste. In his
work on animals Albert alludes in one passage to his villa on the
Danube.[1708] In 1256 he went to Rome to defend the friars against the
attacks of William of St. Amour, and while in Italy discovered the _De
motibus animalium_ of Aristotle. In his theological _Summa_ he speaks
of having collected the material for his treatise _On the Unity of
the Intellect against Averroes_, when he was “in the _curia_ at the
command of Lord Alexander the Pope.”[1709] In 1259, when the general
chapter of the Dominicans met at Valenciennes, he was appointed upon
a committee to draw up a course of study for the Order along with
Aquinas and Pietro di Tarantasia, who in 1276 became Pope Innocent V.
After resigning the bishopric of Ratisbon in 1262, Albert returned to
teaching at Cologne, but in 1263 he preached the crusade in Germany and
Bohemia, and his name appears in documents at Würzburg in that year
and those immediately following.[1710] In his _Politics_ he speaks of
having been papal _nuncius_ in Saxony and Poland, where he found the
barbaric custom still observed of killing the old men of the tribe when
they had outlived their period of usefulness.[1711] We are told that in
1270 he despatched a treatise to Paris to help Aquinas in connection
with the affair of Siger de Brabant, and in 1277 visited that city
again in person to defend his own Aristotelian teaching and the memory
of Aquinas in connection with the condemnation by Stephen Tempier,
bishop of Paris, and other doctors of 219 opinions ascribed to the
same Siger de Brabant and others,[1712]--an affair of which we shall
have more to say later. The Catholic Encyclopedia and _Dictionnaire
d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastique_ repeat the assertion of
fifteenth century biographers that Albert attended the Council of
Lyons in 1274, but the _Histoire Littéraire de la France_ eighty years
ago assured us that his name is not mentioned in the records of that
assembly.[1713]
[Sidenote: Albert at Cologne.]
This brief account of Albert’s life has made it evident that he stayed
in no one place for long at a time, and his own works show that he
had traveled widely. He seems, however, to have returned repeatedly
to Cologne, and to have passed more time there than at any other one
place. There he saw ruined remains of Roman buildings excavated;[1714]
there he says that he wrote his _De natura locorum_;[1715] and there
other of his writings, partly in his own hand, were still treasured
when Peter of Prussia wrote his life near the close of the fifteenth
century.[1716]
[Sidenote: Contemporary estimates of Albert.]
We have seen that Albert was already cited as an authority during his
lifetime by such writers as Petrus Hispanus and Vincent of Beauvais.
Roger Bacon in 1267 mentioned “Brother Albert of the Order of Friars
Preachers” and William of Shyrwood as two of the foremost scholars
of the time, although he seems rather jealous of Albert and inclined
to rank William of Shyrwood and of course himself above him.[1717]
Such envy only proves the great reputation that Albert had. In the
_Summa philosophiae_ ascribed to Grosseteste but which we have seen
was apparently written some years after his death, following a long
list of ancient and Arabian philosophers and some comparatively modern
Christian writers such as Gundissalinus, Constantinus, and Alfred of
England, the author mentions as even “more modern” Alexander minor,
presumably Alexander of Hales the Franciscan who died in 1245, and
Albert of Cologne of the Order of Preachers. He regards them as
distinguished philosophers but not to be held for authorities. However,
he later prefers Albert’s explanation of the virtues of gems to those
of Democritus, Pythagoras, Plato, Hermes, and Avicenna. He also
calls Albert “the most famous of modern theologians,” and gives his
arguments against vision being by extramission.[1718] Ulrich Engelbert
of Strasburg, a contemporary and pupil of Albert, in the fourth book
of his _Summa theologiae_ described “my lord Albert, once bishop of
Ratisbon,” as “a man in every science so divine that he may well be
called the wonder and miracle of our time.”[1719] Thomas of Cantimpré,
in his moralizing _Bonum universale de apibus_, a farrago of monkish
gossip and incredible tales, written apparently in 1276 or shortly
after, emphasizes the saintly character of Albert who is apparently
well along in years when Thomas writes.[1720] He represents Albert as
having told him that at Paris a demon appeared to him in the likeness
of a certain friar in an attempt to keep him from his studies but
departed at the sign of the cross.[1721] Or again Thomas assures us
that as Albert’s auditor for a considerable time when he occupied the
chair of theology he had seen for himself and “most certainly tested”
how Albert for many years almost daily participated in the prayers
by day and night and read the psalter of David and often sweated
in religious contemplation and meditation. “What wonder,” piously
ejaculates Thomas, “that a man of such whole-hearted devotion and piety
should show superhuman attainments in science!”[1722]
II. _As a Scientist_
[Sidenote: The scope of Albert’s scientific treatises.]
It may be well at the start to indicate the scope and character of
Albert’s works in the field of science. In general they follow the plan
of the natural philosophy of Aristotle and parallel the titles of the
works then attributed, in some cases incorrectly, to Aristotle. We have
eight books of physics, psychological treatises such as the _De anima_
and _De somno et vigilia_, both in three books, and works dealing with
celestial phenomena, such as the _De meteoris_ and _De coelo et mundo_
in four books each, and with the universe and life in general, such as
the _De causis et procreatione universi_, _De causis et proprietatibus
elementorum et planetarum_, and the _De generatione et corruptione_.
Geography is represented by the _De natura locorum_, zoology by the
twenty-six books on animals, botany by the seven books on vegetables
and plants, and mineralogy by the five books on minerals. Björnbo
called attention to a work on mirrors or catoptric ascribed to “Albert
the Preacher” in several manuscripts but which is not included in the
editions of Albert’s works and which has never been printed.[1723] I
do not know if this is the same treatise as a treatise on Perspective
attributed to Albertus Magnus in a manuscript which Björnbo did not
mention.[1724] A work on the planting of trees and preserving of wine
is sometimes ascribed to Albert in the manuscripts, but is probably
rather by Petrus de Crescentiis or Galfridus de Vino Salvo.[1725]
I think that I have encountered only once in the manuscripts the
attribution to Albert of an epitome of the _Almagest_ of Ptolemy[1726]
and of a _Summa astrologiae_.[1727] Fairly frequently one meets with
some brief compendium of all natural philosophy ascribed to Albert,
of which perhaps the most common is the _Philosophia pauperum_ or
“Introduction to the books of Aristotle on physics, sky and universe,
generation and corruption, meteorology, and the soul.”[1728] These
are either spurious, or, if based on Albert’s writings, add nothing
of importance to them. Finally we may note a group of works lying on
the border of natural and occult science and which have been regarded
as spurious: treatises on alchemy and chiromancy, the _Speculum
astronomiae_, the _De secretis mulierum_, the _Liber aggregationis_,
and the _De mirabilibus mundi_. Of some of these we shall treat in
separate chapters.
[Sidenote: Can a gradual intellectual development be traced in Albert’s
works?]
The order in which Albert’s numerous works were written is a matter
difficult to determine but of some interest, although not of very great
importance, for our investigation. The statement of Peter of Prussia
that the translation of Aristotle “which we now use in the schools”
was made by Thomas of Cantimpré at the suggestion of Aquinas, “for in
Albert’s time all commonly used the old translation,”[1729] would, if
true, suggest that Albert wrote his Aristotelian treatises early in
life, since he actually outlived Aquinas. But not much reliance is to
be placed in this statement of Peter, since it is reasonably certain
that Thomas of Cantimpré at least did not translate Aristotle. I have
been impressed by differing and almost inconsistent attitudes in
different treatises by Albert, for instance in his attitude towards
magic, which seem to hint that his opinions changed with the years,
although it may be attributable, as in some other authors, to the
fact that in different works he reflects the attitude of different
authorities, or approaches different subjects with a different
view-point, writing of theology as a theologian, but of Aristotle as a
philosopher. However, Baeumker and Schneider, pursuing in connection
with Albert’s writings a different line of investigation from mine,
have been struck with the same thing and have concluded that Albert
underwent a gradual intellectual development. They note that in his
_Commentaries on the Sentences_ he is still glued to the Augustinian
tradition, while in his _Summa_ he is strongly influenced by Aristotle
and working for a synthesis of Aristotle and Augustine. Finally, in his
philosophical and scientific works, related to the genuine and spurious
works of Aristotle, “he goes very far with this Arabian-trimmed
Neo-Platonism, often so far that he finally feels compelled to explain
such exposition as mere citation, and in the strife of conflicting
masses of thought surging within him refers for his own personal
interpretation to his theological writings.”[1730] From this it
would seem that most of Albert’s theological treatises were written
before his scientific works, based upon Aristotle and spurious Arabic
and other additions. But we have seen that many of his Aristotelian
treatises were completed before the _Speculum naturale_ of Vincent
of Beauvais, whereas his _Sentences_ name 1246 and 1249 as current
dates.[1731]
[Sidenote: His best works are those on natural science.]
But while Albert may sometimes refer to his theological works for his
own personal views, he does not do so in those passages which will
especially concern us, and it is in his works on natural science that
he seems to the modern reader more original. Indeed Jessen declared
that repeated perusal of Albert’s many writings in the field of natural
history had convinced him that he was “original everywhere, even where
he seems to copy.”[1732] Jessen, indeed, held that Albert would have
been even more original and outspoken than he is, but for fear of the
charge of heresy; but in my opinion there is little to support such a
view. Be that as it may, in his works on natural science Albert does
not merely repeat past ideas whether of Aristotle or others, but adds
chapters of his own drawn in large measure from his own observation,
experience, and classification. It is in his scientific works that he
is as superior to Aquinas as the latter is generally considered to
surpass him in the purely metaphysical and theological field. Since
writing the foregoing sentences I have found that Peter of Prussia
expressed much the same view in his life of Albert written toward the
close of the fifteenth century. Peter says, “Moreover, this should be
understood, that after Aristotle faith is to be put in Albert above all
who have written in philosophy, because he has himself illuminated the
writings of almost all philosophers and has seen wherein they spoke
truly or falsely, nay more, since he himself was experienced above all
others in natural phenomena. It may be that some, relying on their
metaphysics or logic, can impugn him by certain arguments, but I think
that no matter of great concern, since Albert himself says that faith
is to be put in anyone who is expert in his art.”[1733]
[Sidenote: Albert’s fame in the early nineteenth century.]
Albert’s scientific fame perhaps reached its zenith shortly before
the publication of Darwin’s _Origin of Species_ in 1859. In 1836 and
1837 Ernst Meyer published in _Linnaea_[1734] his “Albertus Magnus,
ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Botanik im XIII Jahrhundert,” and
later in his _History of Botany_[1735] ranked Albert as the greatest
botanist during the long period between Aristotle and Theophrastus on
the one hand and Andrea Cesalpini on the other. “Yes, more than that.
From Aristotle, the creator of scientific botany, until his time this
science sank deeper and deeper with time. With him it arose like the
Phoenix from its ashes. That, I think, is praise enough, and this crown
shall no one snatch away from him.”[1736] In the meantime, at Paris in
1853, Pouchet had published his _History of the Natural Sciences in
the Middle Ages_ with the sub-title, _Or Albertus Magnus and his age
considered as the point of departure of the experimental school_.[1737]
But the extreme praise of Albert had occurred a little earlier in
lectures on the history of science delivered by De Blainville at
the Sorbonne in 1839-1841 and published a few years later.[1738] De
Blainville too centered his discussion of medieval science about
Albert, to whom alone he devoted some ninety pages, extolling him for
affirming the permanence of species and for “broadening” Aristotle to
fit the requirements of theology. In ten theses in which De Blainville
undertook to sum up briefly the chief legacies of Albert to science, he
held that he completed and terminated the circle of human knowledge,
adding to Aristotle the scientific demonstration of the relations
of man with God; that he extended the scope of observation to every
scientific field except anatomy; that he created the description of
natural bodies, a thing unknown to the ancients; and that in filling in
the gaps in Aristotle’s writings he was the first to embrace all the
natural sciences in a complete plan, logical and perfectly followed.
“In accepting therefore with the Christian Aristotle,” concluded De
Blainville, “the first verse of _Genesis_, ‘In the beginning God
created heaven and earth,’ and the consequences which follow it, we
have, in my opinion, reached the _apogée_ of the encyclopedia of human
knowledge, which can now only extend itself in respect to the number
and the deeper knowledge of material objects.”
[Sidenote: A survival of the medieval attitude.]
This passage from De Blainville, who seems to have been a Roman
Catholic, is very interesting as showing how the progress of modern
science in his own time and the centuries just preceding could be
almost completely miscomprehended by a professed historian of science.
We must not, however, suppose that such misconceptions of the progress
of science were universal or even general in the first half of the
nineteenth century. The article on Albertus Magnus in the _Histoire
Littéraire de la France_, which was published in 1838, recognizes that
Albert did not extend the bounds of the sciences as much as had been
supposed, and that progress had been made since the sixteenth century
which rendered that part of his works “almost useless.”[1739] The
passage from De Blainville is interesting also as showing the same
intimate connection presupposed between Christian theology, natural
science, and Aristotelianism as in the days of the great Dominicans
themselves. Again, it reveals the extent to which natural science,
since the appearance of _The Origin of Species_, has tended to the
opposite extreme.
[Sidenote: Recent historians of science and Albert.]
As for historians of science, they have been rather scarcer of late
than in the earlier years of the nineteenth century, when the subject
seems to have had a great vogue in France. Or at least the historians
of science have been less sympathetic with the distant past. Perhaps
the inclination has been to go almost as far toward the other pole
of neglect as De Blainville went toward that of extollation. But
the modern eulogies of the scientific attainments of Roger Bacon,
supposed to be a thorn in the side of the medieval church and falsely
regarded as its victim, and as the one lone scientific spirit of the
middle ages, have been rather more absurd than the earlier praises of
Albert, who was represented both as a strong pillar in the church and
the backbone of medieval and Christian science. Indeed, the _Histoire
Littéraire_, in the same passage which we a moment ago quoted against
De Blainville, also states with probable justification that Albert
did “more than any other doctor of his day” to introduce the natural
sciences into the course of public and private studies, and that it
was his taste for those subjects which won him his popular renown and
the homage of scholars until the end of the seventeenth century. At no
period, however, has Albert been entirely without defenders. Jessen in
1867 regarded him as an original natural scientist. Stadler in 1906
recognized that “he made many independent observations, perhaps even
carried out experiments,” and showed great interest in biology.[1740]
[Sidenote: Albert’s scientific spirit.]
Coming back from the opinions of others concerning Albert to his own
attitude towards natural science, it is to be noted that, while he
may make all sorts of mistakes judged by modern standards, he does
show unmistakable signs of the scientific spirit. This will become
more apparent as we proceed, but for the present we may cite two
examples of it, and these from a work based upon a pseudo-Aristotelian
treatise and one which at first sight might seem quite superstitious
and unscientific to the modern reader, since it is full of astrology,
the _De causis et proprietatibus elementorum et planetarum_.[1741] In
the first passage Albert repeats the justification of natural science
against a narrow religious attitude which we heard from the lips of
William of Conches in the previous century. When Albert finds that
some men attribute the deluge simply to the divine will and believe
that no other cause for it should be sought, he replies that he too
ascribes it ultimately to the divine will, but that he believes that
God acts through natural causes in the case of natural phenomena, and
that, while he would not presume to search the causes of the divine
will, he does feel free to investigate those natural causes which were
the divine instruments. A little further on in the same chapter Albert
declares that “it is not enough to know in terms of universals, but we
seek to know each object’s own peculiar characteristics, for this is
the best and perfect kind of science.”[1742]
[Sidenote: Philosophical generalization and scientific detail.]
This desire for concrete, specific, detailed, accurate knowledge
concerning everything in nature is felt by Albert in other of his
writings to be scarcely in the spirit of the Aristotelian natural
philosophy which he follows and sets forth in his parallel treatises.
In his work on animals a cleavage may be observed between those parts
where Albert discusses the general natures and common characteristics
of animals and seems to follow Aristotle rather closely, and those
books where he lists and describes particular animals with numerous
allusions to recent experience and considerable criticism of past
authorities. At the beginning of his twenty-second book he apologizes
for listing particular animals in alphabetical order, which is “not
appropriate to philosophy,” by saying that “we know we are debtors both
to the wise and to the unlearned, and those things which are told in
particular terms better instruct a rustic intelligence.” But while this
desire to describe particular objects precisely is felt by Albert to
be not in accord with traditional philosophic methods of presentation,
it is a desire which many of his contemporaries share with him. At
the beginning of his sixth book on vegetables and plants, where
particular herbs and trees are listed, he explains, “In this sixth book
of vegetables we satisfy the curiosity of our students rather than
philosophy, for philosophy cannot deal with particulars.”
[Sidenote: Medieval interest in nature.]
This healthy interest in nature and commendable curiosity concerning
real things was not confined to Albert’s students nor to “rustic
intelligences.” One has only to examine the sculpture of the great
thirteenth century cathedrals to see that the craftsmen of the towns
were close observers of the world of nature and that every artist was
a naturalist too. In the foliage that twines about the capitals of
the columns in French Gothic cathedrals it is easy to recognize, says
M. Mâle, a large number of plants: “the plantain, arum, ranunculus,
fern, clover, coladine, hepatica, columbine, cress, parsley,
strawberry-plant, ivy, snapdragon, the flower of the broom and the
leaf of the oak, a typically French collection of flowers loved from
childhood.”[1743] _Mutatis mutandis_, the same statement could be made
concerning the carved vegetation that runs riot in Lincoln cathedral.
“The thirteenth century sculptors sang their _chant de mai_. All the
spring delights of the Middle Ages live again in their work--the
exhilaration of Palm Sunday, the garlands of flowers, the bouquets
fastened on the doors, the strewing of fresh herbs in the chapels, the
magical flowers of the feast of Saint John--all the fleeting charm of
those old-time springs and summers. The Middle Ages, so often said to
have little love for nature, in point of fact gazed at every blade of
grass with reverence.”[1744] But it is not merely love of nature but
scientific interest and accuracy that we see revealed in the sculptures
of the cathedrals and in the note-book of the thirteenth century
architect, Villard de Honnecourt,[1745] with its sketches of insect
as well as animal life, of a lobster, two parroquets on a perch, the
spirals of a snail’s shell, a fly, a dragonfly, and a grasshopper, as
well as a bear and a lion from life, and more familiar animals such
as the cat and swan. The sculptors of gargoyles and chimeras were not
content to reproduce existing animals but showed their command of
animal anatomy by creating strange compound and hybrid monsters--one
might almost say, evolving new species--which nevertheless have all
the verisimilitude of copies from living forms. It was these breeders
in stone, these Burbanks of the pencil, these Darwins with the chisel,
who knew nature and had studied botany and zoology in a way superior to
the scholar who simply pored over the works of Aristotle and Pliny. No
wonder that Albert’s students were curious about particular things.
[Sidenote: Albert’s own attitude.]
But one is inclined to wonder whether the passage from the _De causis
et proprietatibus elementorum et planetarum_, which we quoted first,
may not have been written after the passages which we have quoted from
his works on plants and animals, and whether Albert had come, thanks
possibly to that same stimulating scientific curiosity of his students,
to cease to apologize for the detailed description of particular
objects as unphilosophical and to praise it as “the best and perfect
kind of science.” At any rate it is those portions of his works on
animals, plants, and minerals which he devotes to such description of
particular objects which possess most independent value, and it is
perhaps also worth noting that Ptolemy of Lucca in looking back upon
Albert’s work seems not only to distinguish his writings on logic
and theology from those on nature, but also to imply a distinction
between Aristotle’s natural philosophy and his “very well-known and
most excellent contribution to the experimental knowledge of things of
nature.”[1746] Ptolemy seems to say Aristotle’s contribution, but the
credit really belongs largely to Albert and his students.
[Sidenote: Albert and modern experimentation.]
Pouchet was therefore not without justification in his sub-title, “Or
Albertus Magnus and his Period Considered as the Beginning of the
Experimental School.” His distinguishing, however, three stages of
scientific progress in the history of civilization--the first, Greek,
characterized by observation, and represented especially by Aristotle;
the second, Roman, marked by erudition and typified by Pliny; the
third, medieval, distinguished by experimentation, and having Albertus
Magnus and Roger Bacon as its two great representatives;--was rather
too general and sweeping. Galen, for instance, was a great experimenter
and the ancient Empirics put little trust in anything except
experience. Albert himself, in discussing “the serious problem” whether
life is possible in the Antipodes or southern hemisphere, states that
“the most powerful kings and the most accomplished philosophers have
labored over it from antiquity, the kings forsooth by experiment and
the philosophers by rational inquiry.”[1747] Moreover, neither Roger
Bacon nor Albert can be shown to have done much experimenting of the
sort, carefully planned and regulated, which is carried on in modern
laboratories. Meyer in his _History of Botany_,[1748] although Albert
was a great favorite with him, felt constrained to renounce the credit
for purposive experimentation which Pouchet had given him. “How gladly
would I see this crown also placed deservedly upon my favorite’s
head!... But I do not know of his undertaking an experiment in order
to solve a physiological or physical problem in which he had a clearly
defined purpose and the suitable materials at hand for carrying it out;
his books on plants certainly do not contain a single one.”
[Sidenote: Personal observation and experience of plants.]
Albert’s work on plants does contain, however, many passages in
which he recognizes experience as a criterion of truth or gives the
results of his personal observations. Such passages occur especially
in the sixth book where he tries to satisfy his students’ curiosity,
but we may first note an earlier passage where he recommends “making
conjectures and experiments” in order to learn the nature of trees
in general and of each variety of tree, herb, fruit, and fungus in
particular. Since, however, one can scarcely have personal experience
of them all, it is also advisable to read the books which the experts
(_experti_) of antiquity have written on such matters.[1749] But
a mistrust of the assertions of others often accompanies Albert’s
reliance upon personal observation and experience. Like Galen in his
work on medicinal simples, he explains in opening his sixth book that
merely to list the names of plants found in existing books would
fill a volume, and that he will limit his discussion to those native
varieties “better known among us.” Of some of these he has had personal
experience; for the others he follows authors whom he has found unready
to state anything unless it was proved by experience. For experience
alone is reliable concerning particular natures. He cautions in regard
to a tree which is said to save doves from serpents, “But this has
not been sufficiently proved by certain experience, like the other
facts which are written here, but is found in the writings of the
ancients.”[1750] Of another assertion he remarks, “But this is proved
by no experience”;[1751] and of a third he says, “As some affirm, but
I have not tested this myself.”[1752]
[Sidenote: Experience a criterion in zoology.]
Personal observation and experience are equally, if not more,
noticeable in Albert’s work on animals. He proposes to tell “what
he knows by reason and what he sees by experience of the natures of
animals”; he adds that science cannot be attained in all matters by
demonstration, in some cases one must resort to conjecture.[1753]
After listing various remedies for the infirmities of falcons from the
work on falconry of the Emperor Frederick, he concludes, “Such are the
medicines which one finds given for falcons and the experience of wise
men, but the wise falconer will with time add to or subtract from them
according to his own experience of what is beneficial to the state of
health of the birds. For experience is the best teacher in all matters
of this sort.”[1754]
[Sidenote: Observations of Albert and his associates.]
In the treatise on animals as in that on plants Albert’s allusions
to experience occur mainly in the last few books where he describes
particular animals. Here he often says, “I have tested this,” or “I
and my associates have experienced,”[1755] or “I have not experienced
this,” or “I have proved that this is not true.”[1756] Like Alexander
of Neckam he rejects the story that the beaver castrates itself
in order to escape with its life from its hunters; Albert says
that experience near his home has often disproved this.[1757] In
discussing whales he restricts himself entirely to the results of
his own observation, saying, “We pass over what the Ancients have
written on this topic because their statements do not agree with
experience.”[1758] According to Pouchet[1759] Albert gives even more
detailed information concerning whales than do the Norse sagas, and
also includes animals of the north unknown to classical writers. He
occasionally reveals his nationality by giving the German as well
as the Latin names of animals, and he displays an acquaintance
with the fauna of surrounding countries such as Norway, Sweden,
Bohemia, and Carinthia.[1760] He asserts that there are no eels in
the Danube and its tributaries, but that they abound in the other
rivers of Germany.[1761] He tells of observing the habits of eagles
in Livonia,[1762] or supports the account in Solinus of a monstrous
beast with fore legs like human arms and hind legs like human legs by
stating that he has seen both male and female of the species captured
in the forests of Russia (_Sclaviae_).[1763] Of his wide travels and
observation of natural phenomena we shall meet other examples as we
proceed.
[Sidenote: Experiments with animals.]
Albert has not only observed animal life widely, he has also performed
experiments with animals as he apparently did not do with plants. He
and his associates, for instance, have proved by experiment that a
cicada goes on singing in its breast for a long time after its head has
been cut off.[1764] He also proved to his satisfaction that the turtle,
although a marine animal, would not drink sea water, unless possibly
fresh water which flowed into the sea, by experimenting with a turtle
in a vessel of water.[1765] He has heard it said that the ostrich eats
and digests iron, but the many ostriches to whom he has offered the
metal have consistently declined it, although they would devour with
avidity stones and bones cut into small bits.[1766] Crude experiments
these may be, but they are at least purposive.
[Sidenote: Past authors questioned.]
Albert also often expresses doubt as to certain statements concerning
animals on the ground that they have not been tested by experience,
even if he has had no opportunity to disprove them. And he draws a
sharp distinction between authors who state what they themselves
have seen and tested and those who appear simply to repeat rumor or
folk-lore. That there are any such birds as gryphons or griffins,
he believes is affirmed in story-books (_historiae_) rather than
supported by the experiments of philosophers or arguments of
philosophy.[1767] The story found in the _Physiologus_ of the pelican’s
restoring its young with its own blood he also considers as “read in
story-books rather than proved philosophically by experience,”[1768]--a
criticism which shows how mistaken those modern scholars have been
who have declared the Physiologus and Bestiaries representative of
the thirteenth century attitude towards nature. The accounts of
harpies which one reads are also according to Albert “not based upon
experience, but are the assertions of men of no great authority.”[1769]
They are said to be rapacious birds with crooked nails and human
faces, and when a harpy meets a man in the desert it is said to kill
him, but afterwards, when it sees by its reflection in the water that
its own face is human, it grieves all the rest of its life for the
man whom it has slain. “But these statements,” says Albert, “have not
been experienced and seem fabulous. Such tales are told especially by
a certain Adelinus” (perhaps the Anglo-Saxon Aldhelm) “and Solinus
and Jorach.” Albert is particularly chary of accepting the assertions
of these last two authors, assuring us, anent their statement that
certain birds can fly unharmed through flames, “These philosophers
tell many lies and I think that this is one of their lies.”[1770] In
yet other passages Albert calls one or the other of them a liar.[1771]
He also sometimes rejects statements of Pliny, once classing him with
Solinus among those who rehearse popular hearsay rather than disclose
scientific experience.[1772]
[Sidenote: Instances of credulity.]
Albert thus displays considerable independence in dealing with past
authorities. Yet at times statements in earlier writers which seem
absurd to us pass him unchallenged. He is far, for example, from
rejecting all of Pliny’s marvelous assertions. He still believes that
the little fish _eschinus_ can stop “a ship two hundred feet or more”
in length by clinging to its keel, so that neither wind nor art nor
violence can move it.[1773] And he adds something to Pliny’s tale of
hunters who make good their escape to their ship with the tiger’s
cubs by throwing them one at a time to the pursuing tigress, who
takes each whelp back to her lair before returning to the pursuit of
the hunters.[1774] Albert’s emendation is that the hunters provide
themselves with glass spheres which they roll one at a time towards
the pursuing tigress.[1775] Seeing her own reflection on a small
scale in the glass ball, she thinks it one of her cubs until she
has vainly tried to give it milk, when she discovers the fraud and
bounds after the hunters again. But a second and a third glass ball
deceive her temporarily as before, and so the hunters reach their ship
without having had to surrender any of the real cubs. This imputation
of singular stupidity to the tigress should be kept in mind to set
against other passages in medieval writers where almost human sagacity
is ascribed to animals. Although in two or three preceding passages
Albert has refuted the doctrine of spontaneous generation of animal
life,[1776] he attributes the following passage to Pliny without
adverse criticism.[1777] “There is a worm shaped like a star, as Pliny
says, which shines like a star at night; but it never appears except
when after great clouds it predicts clear weather.[1778] He says that
there is so much rigid cold in this worm that it extinguishes fire like
ice. And if a man’s flesh is touched with its slime, all the hair falls
off and what it touches decays. And he says that they beget nothing,
nor is there male or female among them. Therefore they are generated
from decaying matter.” Albert also accepts the story of the poisoned
maiden sent to Alexander the Great.
[Sidenote: Incredible “experiences.”]
Albert also is unduly credulous of utterances about animals supposed
to be based upon experience, although he cannot be called a mere
empiricist, since he tries to test particular statements by the general
laws concerning living beings which he has read in Aristotle or derived
from his own experience and reflection. He denies, for example, Pliny’s
statement that other animals are attracted by the pleasant smell which
the panther emits as it sleeps after overeating, on the ground that man
is the only animal who is pleased or displeased by odors.[1779] But it
would seem that some of the fishermen, fowlers, and hunters from whom
he gleaned bits of zoological information were not so trustworthy as he
imagined. He says that “a trustworthy person” told him that he saw in
an eagle’s nest three hundred ducks, over a hundred geese, about forty
hares, and many large fish, all of which were required to satisfy the
appetites of the young eagles.[1780] He also “heard from trustworthy
persons” that a serpent with the virgin countenance of a beardless man
“was slain in an island of Germany and there displayed in our times
to all who wished to see it until the flesh putrefied.”[1781] Such
reports of mermaids and sea-serpents have still, however, a certain
currency. Experienced hunters said that worms could be killed in
any beast by suspending from its neck a strip of citron (_sticados
citrinum_) immediately after it had been dried.[1782] German artificers
of Albert’s day told him that the hyena bore a gem in its eyes, or
more truly in its forehead.[1783] Albert sometimes has a tall story
of his own to tell. At Cologne in the presence of himself and many
associates a little girl of perhaps three years was exhibited who, as
soon as she was released from her mother’s hands, ran to the corners
of the room searching for spiders, “and ate them all large and small,
and flourished on this diet and greatly preferred it to all other
food.”[1784] Albert also learned by personal experience that moles
gladly eat frogs and toads. For once he saw a mole who held by the foot
a big toad which “cried loudly because of the mole’s bite.”[1785] He
also found by experience that both frogs and toads would eat a dead
mole. In affirming that the custom of killing off the old men is still
prevalent within the borders of Saxony and Poland, Albert says, “As I
have seen with my own eyes”; but really all that he has seen is the
graves of their fathers which the sons have shown to him.[1786]
[Sidenote: Minerals and experience.]
Albert’s general attitude towards past authorities and present
experience remains the same in his treatise on minerals. He will give
the names of the important gems and state their virtues as known from
authorities and experience, but he will not repeat everything that
has been said about precious stones because it is not profitable for
science. “For natural science is not simply receiving what one is
told, but the investigation of causes in natural phenomena.”[1787]
Concerning metals, too, he intends to state “rationally either what
has been handed down by the philosophers or what I myself have
experienced.”[1788] He adds that once he wandered far in exile to
places rich in mines in order that he might test the natures of metals.
“And for this same reason I investigated the transmutation of metals
among the alchemists, in order that I might observe something of the
nature and characteristics of the metals.” In a later chapter he
alludes to workers in copper “in our parts, namely, Paris and Cologne,
and in other places where I have been and seen things tested by
experience.”[1789] _Fui et vidi experiri_, such is Albert the Great’s
peaceful paraphrase, probably unintentional, for warring Caesar’s
_Veni, vidi, vici_.
[Sidenote: Minerals and credulity.]
Again, also, in the treatise on minerals, reliance upon experience
proves to be no sure guarantee against incorrect notions, credulity,
and unquestioning trust in authority. Albert still repeats[1790] the
old notion that “adamant,” hard as it is, is softened and dissolved by
the blood and flesh of a goat, especially if the goat for some time
before has been fed on a diet of certain herbs and wine.[1791] He adds
that this property of goat’s blood makes it beneficial for sufferers
from stone in the bladder. Albert repeats with a qualifying “It is
said” the statement that the emerald comes from the nests of gryphons
or griffins,[1792] but he does not stop to deny the existence of those
birds, as we have heard him do elsewhere. He adds, however, as to the
source of the emerald that “a truthful and curious experimenter coming
from Greece” had said that it was produced in rocks under the sea.
This expression, “curious experimenter” (_curiosus experimentator_),
or perhaps better “inquisitive observer,” Albert also applied to one
of his associates who saw Frederick II’s peculiar magnet.[1793] In the
present discussion of the emerald he adds that experience in his own
time has proved that this stone, “if good and true,” cannot endure
sexual intercourse, so that the reigning king of Hungary, who was
wearing an emerald upon his finger when he went in to his wife, broke
it into three pieces. “And that is probably why they say that this
stone inclines its wearer to chastity.”
[Sidenote: Tale of a toad and an emerald.]
Albert, however, had told as a personal experience a stranger tale
than this of an emerald in his work on vegetables and plants in order
to illustrate “the many effects of stones and plants which are known
by experience and by which wonders are worked.” But as a matter of
fact, the incident is concerned not with an emerald and a plant, but an
emerald and a toad, an animal which one would infer was in Albert’s day
often the subject of experiment.
“An emerald was recently seen among us, small in size but marvelous in
beauty. When its virtue was to be tested, someone stepped forth and
said that, if a circle was made about a toad with the emerald and then
the stone was set before the toad’s eyes, one of two things would
happen. Either the stone, if of weak virtue, would be broken by the
gaze of the toad; or the toad would burst, if the stone was possessed
of full natural vigor. Without delay things were arranged as he bade;
and after a short lapse of time, during which the toad kept its eye
unswervingly upon the gem, the latter began to crack like a nut and
a portion of it flew from the ring. Then the toad, which had stood
immovable hitherto, withdrew as if it had been freed from the influence
of the gem.”[1794]
[Sidenote: Experience versus Aristotle.]
In the incident just narrated Albert was perhaps tricked by some
traveling magician. But let us conclude our discussion of his general
scientific method by some more rational instances of personal
observation and experience. In his treatise on meteorology his
discussion of the rainbow, which occupies some twenty-four pages of
Borgnet’s text,[1795] is especially based upon experience and full
of allusions to it--a very interesting fact in view of the large
space which the discussion of the rainbow occupies in Roger Bacon’s
better known eulogy of experimental science. Albert recounts his own
observations when sailing over great waves or when looking down from
the top of a castle built upon a high mountain, “and the time when this
was seen was in the morning after a rainy night, and it was in the
autumn with the sun in the sign of Virgo.” Albert takes exception to
Aristotle’s assertion that rainbows caused by the moon at night appear
only twice in fifty years. He and many others have seen a bow at night,
and “truthful experimenters have found by experience” (_veridici
experimentatores experti sunt_) that a rainbow has appeared twice at
night in the same year. Nor can Albert conceive of any astronomical
reason why it should appear only twice in fifty years. “And so I think
that Aristotle stated this from the opinions of others and not from
the truth of demonstration or experience, while those facts which
have been adduced against his statement have been experienced beyond
a doubt by myself and by other reliable investigators associated with
me.” The very chapter headings of this portion of Albert’s treatise
suggest an antithesis between the ancient authorities and recent
experimental investigation, for instance: “Of the Iris of the Moon
and what Ancients have said of it and what Moderns have tested by
experience,”[1796] and “A Digression stating Seneca’s views concerning
_virgae_ and experiments with certain arcs seen in modern times.”[1797]
Thus while Albert of course believes that the statements of many of
his authorities are based upon experience, he seems to feel that he
and his associates have founded an important modern school for the
investigation of nature at first hand. We may choose to regard it as a
mere school of observation, but he dignifies its members by the title
of _experimentatores_. Again therefore we may admit that Pouchet was
not unjustified in associating Albert with the modern experimental
school.
III. _His Allusions to Magic_
At the close of his story of the toad and the emerald Albert adds
that there are many other such virtues of stones and plants which are
learned by experience, and that magicians investigate the same and
work wonders by them. It is therefore quite appropriate for us to turn
directly from his attitude to experimental method to his conception
of magic. Like William of Auvergne he hints at an association between
the two. His pupil and contemporary, Ulrich Engelbert of Strasburg,
actually called him “expert in magic.”[1798]
[Sidenote: Peter of Prussia on Albert’s occult science.]
In his _Life of Albert_ Peter of Prussia not only is evidently
concerned to make him out a saint as well as a scientist, telling of
his devotion to the Eucharist[1799] and the Virgin Mary and the wood
of the Holy Cross[1800] and of the miraculous visions which he had
from childhood, in which the Virgin and the Apostle Paul appeared
to him,[1801] and how he advanced more in knowledge by prayer than
by study and labor,[1802] and that he read the Psalter through
daily.[1803] He also devotes a number of chapters[1804] to a defense of
Albert against the charge of having indulged in occult sciences, and
of having been “too curious concerning natural phenomena.”[1805] Peter
explains that many superstitions were rife in Albert’s time and that
nigromancers were fascinating the people by their false miracles, and
pretending that their sorcery was worked by the sciences of astronomy,
mathematics, and alchemy.[1806] It was therefore essential that some
man who was equally learned and devout should thoroughly examine
these sciences, proving what was good in them and rejecting what was
bad.[1807] Peter is inclined to be disingenuous in stating Albert’s
attitude toward some of the occult sciences, especially the engraving
of stones with images according to the aspects of the stars, which he
misrepresents Albert as prohibiting, whereas Albert really calls it a
good doctrine, as we shall show later. Peter however states “how useful
it is to know natural and occult phenomena in the nature of things, and
that those who write about such things are to be praised for it.”[1808]
Also “that it is useful and necessary to know the facts of nature even
if they are indecent.”[1809] Later on, towards the close of his book,
Peter denies various feats of magic that by his time had come to be
popularly recounted of Albert, and then does his best to make up for
the subtracted marvels by himself inventing many pious miracles in
which he would have us believe Albert was concerned.[1810]
[Sidenote: Trithemius on Albert’s study of magic.]
The learned Trithemius (1462-1516), abbot of Sponheim, in a letter
to John Westenburgh in which he defends himself against the charge
of magic, admits that he “cannot say that he is entirely ignorant of
natural magic,” a form of wisdom which he regards very highly; and
adduces in his justification the example of “Albertus Magnus, that
most learned man and among the saints truly most saintly, of the
profoundest intellect, worthy of eternal memory, who scrutinized the
depths of natural philosophy, and learned to know marvels unheard of by
others.”[1811] Even to this day, continues Trithemius, he is unjustly
regarded by the unlearned as a magician and devotee of superstition.
For he was not ignorant of the magic of nature, and he had innocently
read and mastered a great number of superstitious books by depraved
men. For not the knowledge but the practice of evil is evil. Trithemius
admits that he himself has read many books of superstitious and even
diabolical magic, but contends that this is necessary, if one is to
learn to distinguish natural from illicit magic.
[Sidenote: _Magnus in magia._]
The brief but sane estimate of Albertus Magnus published eighty years
ago in the _Histoire Littéraire de la France_, from which we have
already had occasion to quote regarding his importance in the history
of natural science, mentions the efforts of Trithemius and Naudé to
defend him from the charge of magic, but adds that even his panegyrists
have called him “great in magic, greater in philosophy, greatest in
theology,” and agrees that he frequently shows a leaning towards the
occult sciences. “He is an alchemist, he is an astrologer, he believes
in enchantments; he delights like most savants of his age in explaining
all phenomena that surprise him by supernatural causes.” This rough
characterization contains much truth, although it is hardly true that
Albert gave supernatural explanations for strange natural phenomena.
Rather he believed in occult forces and marvels in nature which we no
longer credit. We also have already stated it as our opinion that he
was really much greater as a natural scientist than as a theologian.
But we have now to examine what grounds there are for calling him
_magnus in magia_, and _in magicis expertus_.
[Sidenote: His varying treatment of magic.]
Magic is often mentioned by Albert, both in his Biblical and
Aristotelian commentaries, both in his theological writings and his
works on natural science. Some references to magic arts, occurring
chiefly in the Biblical commentaries, are too brief, incidental, and
perfunctory to afford any particular information.[1812] The other
passages seem scarcely consistent with one another and will require
separate treatment. We shall first consider those in which Albert more
or less adheres to the traditional Christian attitude of condemnation
of magic as criminal and dealing with demons, of recognition of its
marvels but jealous differentiation of them from divine miracle. It
should be observed that all such passages occur in his theological
writings and that in them he does little more than rehearse opinions
which we have already encountered in the writings of the early
Christian fathers with a few additional citations from books of
necromancy or from Arabic works on natural science such as those of
Algazel and Avicenna.
[Sidenote: Reality of magic.]
Albert has no doubt either in his scientific or religious writings that
marvels can be worked by magic. It is true that one of its departments,
_praestigia_, has to do with illusions and juggleries in which things
are made to appear to exist which have no reality. But it also performs
actual transformations.[1813] But even the actual performances of magic
are deceptive in that demons by their means lead human souls astray,
which is far worse than merely to deceive the eye.[1814]
[Sidenote: Magic due to demons.]
Albert affirms in his theological _Summa_ that it is the consensus of
opinion that magic is due to demons. “For the saints expressly say
so, and it is the common opinion of all persons, and it is taught in
that part of necromancy which deals with images and rings and mirrors
of Venus and seals of demons by Achot Graecus and Grema of Babylon
and Hermes of Egypt, and invocations for this purpose are described
in the book of Hermogenes and Philetus, the necromancers, and in
the book called the Almandel of Solomon.”[1815] In his _Commentary
on the Sentences_[1816] Albert declares that to make use of “magic
virtues” is evil and apostasy from the Faith, whether one openly
resorts to “invocations, conjurations, sacrifices, suffumigations, and
adorations,” or to some simple operation which none the less requires
demon aid for its performance. One must beware even of “mathematical
virtues,” that is, of astrological forces, especially in “images,
rings, mirrors, and characters,” lest the practice of idolatry be
introduced. In commenting upon the passage in the gospel where the
Pharisees accuse Christ of casting out demons through the prince of
demons, Albert admits that necromancers are able to cast out demons and
to restrain them from doing external damage, but holds that they cannot
like Christ restrain the evil spirits from inciting inward sin.[1817]
[Sidenote: Magic and miracle.]
Albert will not admit, however, that the marvels of magic compare with
divine miracles. For one thing, feats of magic do not even happen as
instantaneously as miracles, although they occur much more rapidly
than the ordinary processes of nature. But except for this difference
in speed the works of magic can usually be explained as the product
of natural forces, and by the fact that the demons are aided in their
operations by the influence of the stars. To change rods into snakes,
for instance, as Pharaoh’s magicians did, is simply hastening the
process by which worms generate in decaying trees. Indeed, Albert is
inclined to believe that the demons “produce no permanent substantial
form that would not easily be produced by putrefaction.”[1818] The
magic power of fascination is after all only analogous to the virtue of
the sapphire in curing ulcers or of the emerald in restraining sexual
passion. Albert adds the comforting thought that neither fascination
nor the magic art can harm anyone who has firm faith in God, but for
us the most important thing to note is that even in his theological
writings he has associated magic with natural forces and the stars as
well as with demons. In this he resembles William of Auvergne rather
than the early Christian fathers.
[Sidenote: Good magic of the Magi.]
Like some other Christian commentators, Albert exempts the Magi of the
gospel story, who followed the star to Bethlehem, from the category of
magicians in the evil sense that we have just heard him define magic.
In his commentary upon the gospel by Matthew he asserts that “the Magi
are not sorcerers (_malefici_) as some wrongly think.” He also affirms
that there is a difference between a Magus and a _mathematicus_ or an
enchanter or necromancer or _ariolus_ or _aruspex_ or diviner. Like
Isidore Albert adopts the incorrect etymology of connecting Magus and
_magnus_. But for him the Magi are not so called on account of the
magnitude of their sins. “Etymologically the Magi are great men” whose
knowledge of, or conjecture from, the inevitable processes of cause
and effect in nature often enables them to predict or produce marvels
of nature. In his commentary on the Book of Daniel Albert quotes
Jerome’s similar description of them as “masters who philosophize
about the universe; moreover, the Magi are more particularly called
astronomers who search the future in the stars.” It is interesting to
note that this view of the Magi still persists among Roman Catholics;
the recent Catholic Encyclopedia still insists concerning the wise
men who came to Bethlehem, “Neither were they magicians: the good
meaning of μάγοι, though found nowhere else in the Bible, is demanded
by the context of the second chapter of Matthew.” But here is a still
more interesting point to note: Albertus Magnus does not deny that
the Magi were magicians. To contend that Magi were not _magi_ was a
contradiction of terms that was probably too much for his common sense.
All that he tries to do is to exculpate them from the practice of
those particular evil, superstitious, and diabolical occult arts which
Isidore and others had included in their definitions of magic. From
evil witchcraft and necromancy and fatalistic astrology, from augury
and liver divination, from the arts of _sortilegi_ and _pythones_,
of enchanters “who by means of certain incantations perform certain
feats with beasts or herbs or stones or images,” or of diviners who
employ geomancy or “the chance of fire” or hydromancy or aerimancy:
from all such practices he acquits them. “They were not devoted to any
of these arts, but only to magic as it has been described. And this
is praiseworthy.”[1819] Thus Albert not merely defends the Magi, he
praises magic; and we begin to see the fitness of the epithet, _Magnus
in magia_, as applied to him.
[Sidenote: Natural magic.]
But how does this praiseworthy magic differ from the magic which he
condemned in his _Summa_ and commentary on the Sentences? Presumably
in that its objects are good not evil, and that it does not make any
use of demons. It would seem to resemble closely the natural magic of
William of Auvergne. It is like evil magic in that both employ the
forces of nature and the influences of the stars, but it is unlike
it in that it employs them exclusively and is free from any resort
to demons and also apparently from the use of incantations or the
superstitious devices of geomancers and other diviners.
[Sidenote: Attitude in the scientific treatises.]
If in his theological writings Albert thus distinguishes two varieties
of magic, one good and one evil, one demoniacal and one natural,
we need not be surprised if in his scientific treatises, where he
is influenced mainly by Arabian astrology, the pseudo-Aristotelian
treatises, the Hermetic literature, and other such writings rather than
by patristic literature, he introduces yet a third conception of magic,
which scarcely agrees with either of the others and yet has features
in common with both. He nowhere in his commentaries on Aristotle or
other works of natural science really stops and discusses magic at any
length. But there are a number of brief and incidental allusions to
it which imply that it is a distinct and definite branch of knowledge
of which, although he himself does not treat, he gives no sign of
disapproval. He also cites even enchanters and necromancers without
offering any apology, and now seems to regard as sub-divisions of magic
those occult arts from which we have just heard him exculpate the Magi.
[Sidenote: Use of animals and herbs in magic.]
In his treatise on animals Albert states that anointing a sleeper’s
temples with the blood of a hoopoe makes him see terrible dreams,
and that enchanters value highly the brain, tongue, and heart of
this bird. He adds, “But we shall not discuss this matter here, for
the investigation of it belongs to another science,”--presumably to
magic.[1820] In his treatise on plants he says that certain herbs seem
to have “divine effects”[1821] which those who study magic follow
up further. Examples are the betony, said to confer the power of
divination, the verbena, used as a love charm, and the herb _meropis_,
supposed to open closed seas, and many other such plants listed in the
books of incantations of Hermes the philosopher and of Costa ben Luca
the philosopher and in the books of physical ligatures. “Enchanter”
(_Incantator_), apparently the author or title of a book, is cited
more than once for the virtues of herbs, and what enchanters in general
say is also mentioned.[1822] “According to the testimony of the
_praestigia_ of the magi” the juice of a certain herb drunk in water
makes a person do or say whatever the magician says or does.[1823]
Students of magic believe that the seed of another herb extinguishes
lust.[1824] Necromancers avow that betony indicates the future when
plucked with an adjuration of Aesculapius,[1825] and students of
necromancy say that a man invoking demons should have a character
painted on him with the herb Jusquiam,[1826] and that gods invoked by
characters and seals and sacrifices present themselves more readily
if frankincense is offered them.[1827] Such passages seem to indicate
that Albert regarded occult virtues as largely the concern of magic,
but that at least in necromancy the invocation of gods and demons also
enters.
[Sidenote: Magic stones.]
Many allusions to magic occur in Albert’s treatise on minerals, as the
especially marvelous powers attributed to gems in antiquity might well
lead us to expect. The magi, he tells us, make much use of the stone
_diacodos_, which is said to excite phantasms but loses its virtue if
it touches a corpse.[1828] But such things do not come within Albert’s
present scope; he refers the reader for further information to the
books of magic of Hermes, Ptolemy, and Thebith ben Chorath. The stone
magnet is also stated in the magic books to have a marvelous power of
producing phantasms, especially if consecrated with an adjuration and a
character.
[Sidenote: Magic images engraved on gems.]
Albert twice assures us that the “prodigious and marvelous” powers of
stones, and more particularly of images and seals engraved on stones,
cannot be really understood without a knowledge of the three other
sciences of magic, necromancy, and astrology.[1829] He therefore
will not in this treatise on minerals discuss the subject as fully
as he might, “since those powers cannot be proved by physical laws
(_principiis physicis_), but require a knowledge of astronomy and magic
and the necromantic sciences, which should be considered in other
treatises.”[1830] For the reason why gems were first so engraved he
refers his readers to “the science of the _magi_ which Magor Graecus
and Germa of Babylon and Hermes the Egyptian were among the first
to perfect, and in which later wise Ptolemy was a marvelous light
and Geber of Spain; Tebith, too, handed down a full treatment of the
art.”[1831] And in this science it is a fundamental principle that all
things produced by nature or art are influenced by celestial virtues.
Thus we comprehend the close connection of astrology and magic. As
for necromancy, the third “science” involved, Albert’s associates are
curious to know the doctrine of images even if it is necromancy, and
Albert does not hesitate to assure them that it is a good doctrine
in any case. Yet in his theological writings he not only condemned
necromancy, but declared the art of images to be evil “because it
inclines to idolatry by imputing divinity to the stars, and ... is
employed for idle or evil ends.”[1832]
[Sidenote: Magic and alchemy; finding hidden metals.]
Albert again refers to magic in his discussion of alchemy in the
treatise on minerals, where he not only cites Hermes a great deal but
refers to writings by Avicenna on magic and alchemy.[1833] Albert
holds that it is not the business of a physical or natural scientist
(_physicus_) to determine concerning the transmutation of metals; that
is the affair of the art of alchemy, which thus seems to lie outside
the field of natural science upon the borders of magic. Similarly the
problem in what places and mountains and by what signs metals are
discovered falls partly within the sphere of natural science and partly
belongs to that magical science which has to do with finding hidden
treasure. Albert perhaps has the employment of the divining rod in mind.
[Sidenote: Fascination and magic.]
The occult virtue of the human mind is another matter which Albert
seems inclined to place within the field of magic. In the treatise on
minerals[1834] he remarks that whether fascination is true or not is a
question for magic to settle, and in his _On Sleep and Waking_[1835]
he cites Avicenna and Algazel as adducing “fascination and magic
virtues” as examples of occult influence exerted by one man over
another. It will be remembered that he cited the same authors anent
fascination in his Commentary on the Sentences,[1836] but there denied
that fascination or magic could harm anyone who had firm faith in God,
although he illustrated the possibility of potent human occult virtue
exercised at will by the marvelous virtues exerted constantly by the
sapphire and emerald. Peter of Prussia gives us to understand that
Albert’s belief was that fascination did not operate naturally but
by the aid of demons; nevertheless certain men are generated at rare
intervals who work marvels like the twins in Germany in Albert’s time
at whose approach bolts would open.[1837]
[Sidenote: Interpretation of dreams and magic.]
Albert also regards the interpretation of dreams as especially the
affair of magic. In one passage of _On Sleep and Waking_[1838] he
grants that probably the art of interpreting dreams cannot be acquired
without a knowledge of magic and “astronomy.” In a second passage[1839]
he speaks of the magicians as teaching the interpretation of dreams
and the “astronomers” as talking of signs of prophecies, but not the
sort of prophecy accepted among theologians. In a third passage[1840]
he defines the kind of dreams “which wise men interpret and for which
was invented the art of interpretation in the magical sciences.” Albert
seems to have no particular objection, either moral or religious,
to the interpretation of dreams, even if it is a branch of magic.
Rather he censures Aristotle and other philosophers for not having
investigated this side of the subject further, and he thinks that
by physical science alone one can at least determine what sort of
dreams are of value for purposes of divination and are susceptible
to interpretation.[1841] Magicians make great use not only of dreams
but also of visions seen when one is awake but with the senses
distracted.[1842] The magicians indeed specialize in potions which clog
and stupefy the senses, and thereby produce apparitions by means of
which they predict the future.
[Sidenote: Magic and divination.]
In this same treatise _On Sleep and Waking_ Albert lists together
“the astronomer and augur and magician and interpreter of dreams and
visions and every such diviner.”[1843] He admits that almost all men
of this type delight in deception and are poorly educated and confuse
what is contingent with what is necessary, but he insists that “the
defect is not in the science but in those who abuse it.” Thus magic and
divination in general are closely associated.
[Sidenote: Summary of Albert’s accounts of magic.]
This last passage, like the connecting of enchanters and necromancers
with magic which we have noted in a previous paragraph, is hard to
reconcile with the passage in his commentary upon the Gospel of Matthew
where Albert separated the Magi and magic from diviners, enchanters,
necromancers, and their arts. So far as mere classification is
concerned, Albert’s references to magic in his scientific writings
are in closer accord with his discussion of magic in the _Summa_ and
Sentences, where too he associated magic with the stars, with occult
virtues, with fascination, and with images. But the emphasis which he
there laid upon the evil character of magic and its connection with
demons is now almost entirely lacking. Our attention is rather being
continually called to how closely magic, or at least some parts of it,
border upon natural science and astronomy. And yet we are also always
being reminded that magic, although itself a “science,” is essentially
different in methods and results from natural science or at least from
what Albert calls “physical science.” Overlapping both these fields,
apparently, and yet rather distinct from both in Albert’s thought,
is the great subject of “astronomy” which includes both the genuine
natural science and the various vagaries of astrology. It is all like
some map of a feudal area where certain fiefs owe varying degrees of
fealty to, or are claimed by, several lords and where the frontiers are
loose, fluctuating, and uncertain. Perhaps the rule of the stars can be
made to account for almost everything in natural science or in magic,
but Albert seems inclined to leave room for the independent action of
divine power, the demons, and the human mind and will. But his attitude
to the stars and to astrology will be considered more fully later; we
shall first examine in more detail his own attitude towards marvelous
virtues in inferior nature and towards some of the other matters which
he has located expressly or by implication along the ill-defined
frontier of “magic and astronomy.” In concluding the present section
let us make the one further observation that while Albert describes
magic differently and even inconsistently in different passages, it is
evident enough that he is trying to describe the same thing all the
time.
IV. _Marvelous Virtues in Nature_
[Sidenote: Properties of the lion.]
So many instances have already been given from other authors of the
occult virtues ascribed to parts of animals that we shall note in
Albert’s treatise on animals only two or three passages, chiefly
for purposes of comparison. The properties which he ascribes to the
carcass of the lion,[1844] for instance, bear a certain resemblance to
Pliny’s paragraph on its medicinal virtues and to Thomas of Cantimpré’s
compilation concerning it, yet are considerably different. Its fat is
hotter than that of other animals, and they flee from anyone who is
anointed with it, while fumigation therewith keeps wolves away from
sheep. A diet of lion’s flesh benefits paralytics. Garments wrapped
in its skin are secure from moths, and the hair falls out of a wolf’s
skin which is left near a lion’s skin. If the tooth of a lion which is
called _caninus_ is suspended about a boy’s neck before he loses his
first teeth, he will be free from toothache when his second teeth come.
Lion’s fat mixed with other unguents removes blotches, and rubbing
cancer with its blood cures that disease. Drinking a little of its gall
cures jaundice; its liver in wine checks pain in the liver. Its brain,
if eaten, causes madness; but remedies deafness, if inserted in the ear
with some strong oil. Its testicle, administered pulverized with roses,
causes sterility--a case, it would seem, of sympathetic magic operating
by contraries. But no doctrine of sympathy and antipathy is needed to
explain the further assertion that its excrement drunk with wine makes
one abhor wine.
[Sidenote: Nasty recipes: illusory lights.]
The last two items are very characteristic of Albert’s section on
quadrupeds, where the medicinal and other properties of such parts as
_stercus_, _virga_, and _testiculus_ are incessantly mentioned, and
are sometimes used in charms, as in the following: “Si virga lupi in
alicuius nomine viri vel mulieris ligetur, non poterit coire donec
nodus ille solutus fuerit.”[1845] The saliva of a fasting human being
cures abscesses and removes scars and blotches.[1846] It kills serpent
or scorpion, if it falls into its mouth or wound so as to reach its
inner parts. If the tip of an arrow or sword has touched the lips of a
fasting man, it inflicts a poisonous wound, say those who have tested
it. Others say that if the wax and dirt from dogs’ ears are smeared
on wicks of new cotton, and these are placed in a crucible in green
oil and lighted, the heads of persons present will appear entirely
bald.[1847] This sort of half-magical, half-chemical experiment with
various combustible or illuminating compositions, which are supposed
to produce optical or other illusions, is not infrequently met with in
medieval manuscripts, especially alchemical ones, and we shall in a
later chapter encounter further specimens thereof in works ascribed to
Albert himself.
[Sidenote: Dragons.]
Albert is rather unusually sceptical concerning dragons, which are
generally the theme of so many marvelous stories. That a dragon is
large enough to crush an elephant with a twist of its tail, that the
Ethiopians eat the flesh of dragons to cool themselves, that dragons
are afraid of thunder and therefore enchanters imitate it with drums
in order to capture dragons and ride on them through space,[1848]--all
such assertions Albert treats as rumors rather than tested facts.
He also suggests that meteors or flaming vapors have been mistaken
for dragons flying through the air and breathing forth fire. We have
already, however, heard his tale of a serpent with a human face.
[Sidenote: The basilisk.]
Albert still believes, moreover, that the mere glance and hiss of the
basilisk are fatal. But while the reptile’s glance will kill as far as
its vision extends, its hiss is not fatal as far as it can be heard but
only as far as it is propagated by the basilisk’s breath.[1849] Albert
rejects as neither true nor reasonable Pliny’s assertion that if a man
sees a basilisk first, his glance is fatal to it. “Nor do Avicenna and
Semerion, philosophers who tell what they have experienced, mention
this.” But Albert repeats Pliny’s story of the horseman who was
killed by touching with the end of his long lance a corpse slain by
a basilisk. He rejects, however, as false and impossible the notion
that the basilisk is generated from a cock’s egg, and the books of
wise philosophers do not support the assertion that there is a flying
variety of basilisk. But scattering the ashes of a basilisk expels
spiders and other venomous creatures, and hence in antiquity its ashes
were scattered in temples. Hermes says that silver rubbed with its ash
takes on the splendor and weight and solidity of gold; Hermes also
teaches that the basilisk is generated in glass, but Albert interprets
this as an allusion to some alchemical elixir by which metals are
transmuted.
[Sidenote: Remedies for falcons and mad dogs.]
Very amusing are the detailed recipes for every ailment of the birds
in the chapters on the infirmities of falcons.[1850] These appear to
be culled chiefly from the works on falconry of the Emperor Frederick
and of King William, one of the Norman line which preceded him in the
kingdom of Sicily. To make the birds fierce one is advised to feed them
flesh soaked in urine. If a falcon develops a cataract, one should
inject into its eye a mixture of pulverized fennel seed and the milk
of a woman bearing a male child. Several prayers and incantations are
recommended for use when taking up the falcon in the morning, when
releasing it in fowling, and in order to preserve it from injury from
eagles. In the last case the words to be repeated are, “Leo conquers
of the tribe of Judah, root of David, Alleluia.” Albert adds, however,
“But these last items,” meaning probably the incantations, “are not so
reasonable as the first,” meaning probably the more purely medicinal
directions. Equally diverting is a cure of a mad dog borrowed by Albert
from a king of Valencia. For nine days the hound should be so immersed
in hot water that his hind legs barely touch the ground while his fore
legs are held erect. After that his head should be shaved and his
hair well plucked out so that the skin is wounded. Then he should be
anointed with beet juice and ducked often and soaked in the same juice.
“And if he eats anything, give him some pith of the elder tree, for it
will do him good. And if this treatment fails to benefit him within the
space of seven days, kill him, for he is incurable.”[1851]
[Sidenote: Habits and remedies of animals.]
Albert’s treatise on animals not only ascribes marvelous properties
and medicinal virtues to various portions of their carcasses, but
also continues to some extent the tradition of crediting them with
semi-human intelligence and medical knowledge. Albert discredits,
however, the report of the adultery of the lioness with the leopard
and her craftiness in concealing it, and he also rejects as contrary
to the wise provision of nature the statement that the lion suffers
continually from quartan fever.[1852] But he believes that a sick
lion cures itself by eating an ape or drinking the blood of a dog.
Even the tortoise (_tortuca_?), although it seems to Albert a sort
of reptile and lacking in “noble virtues of the soul,” yet from mere
natural sagacity eats wild origanum after it has eaten the viper in
order to overcome the chill of the venom by the heat of the herb.[1853]
And someone in Aristotle’s time learned by experience that it will not
eat a viper except in a place where this herb is available, and that
if the herb is removed while it is eating the viper it will die from
want of it. Avicenna tells a similar experience of an old man who was
an experienced hunter and deserving credence. He saw a bird of slow
movement and weak flight fighting with a viper. As often as it was
wounded, it would retreat, eat some of a certain herb, and then return
renewed to the fight. The observer covertly removed the herb and when
the bird returned again and failed to find it, it raised a great outcry
and died. From the old hunter’s description of the plant’s shape and
color Avicenna judged it to be wild lettuce (_lectuca agrestis_).
[Sidenote: The virtues of herbs.]
Thus the remedies employed by animals bring us to the virtues of
herbs. The “divine effects” of certain plants, as we have seen, Albert
regards as lying within the province of magic rather than that of his
treatise on plants, but he mentions a few, such as that planting a
certain herb on the roof protects the house from lightning,[1854] and
that carrying another stirs up quarrels and hatreds,[1855] while a
woman who wears a third about her neck will not become pregnant.[1856]
But he believes that there is strong virtue in herbs in general.
Their elemental qualities are unusually acute and closely akin to the
excellencies of the pure elements. They grow close to the ground and
“recede less from the first fertilizing humor in the earth.”[1857] In
them matter predominates more and the form of the vegetable soul is
less developed than in other kinds of vegetation. Consequently they are
more efficacious in altering other bodies and are used by physicians
more than any other class of remedies.
[Sidenote: Their medicinal use.]
Most, indeed, of the virtues of herbs mentioned by Albert are
medicinal. Sometimes the method of applying them is injudicious, as
when a root of parsley is hung from the neck to cure toothache, or
artemisia is bound to the legs to prevent wayfarers from feeling
weariness.[1858] More often, however, our criticism is that the same
disease is represented as curable by too many different plants, or that
a single herb is made a cure for a long list of very miscellaneous and
unrelated ills, not content with which Albert often concludes, “And it
has many other effects.” Selecting an example at random, we may note
what he says of the nasturtium.[1859] “It possesses acidity, is hot
and dry, acts as a gentle purgative and laxative, and dries up the
putridity of an empty belly. Used as a potion and liniment, it keeps
the hair from falling out. Combined with salt and water, it helps
abscesses and carbuncles, and mixed with honey, it eradicates Persian
Fire and is good for all softening of the muscles. It purifies the
lungs and relieves asthma by its sharp, cutting qualities. It warms the
stomach and liver and cures enlarged spleen, but its disturbing quality
is bad for the stomach. _Auget coitum et multiplicat menstrua et eiicit
foetum, sed tamen si non teratur et confringatur, retinet ipsum._ It is
good for venomous bites, and if carefully prepared, works many other
effects.”
[Sidenote: Occult virtue of herbs due to the stars.]
According to Albert the properties of plants are produced by the
combination of five virtues: that of the element which preponderates
in the composition of the plant, the cooperating virtue of the other
elements which are mixed with it, the virtue of the proportion in
which they are mixed, the influence of the stars, and the virtue of
the vegetable soul. “The virtue of the place (where the plant grows)
and the virtue of the surrounding air are also effective, but they do
not enter into the plant’s nature so essentially as the aforesaid five
virtues.”[1860] “Its specific form,” upon which its occult virtues
largely depend, is given to the plant by the motion of the heavens,
especially by the movement of the planets through the circle of the
zodiac,[1861] and their position in relation to the fixed stars. Plants
receive this influence at the time of their formation, when vapors,
potentially seminal and formative, ascend from the depths of earth and
meet the dewy air as it descends.
[Sidenote: Occult virtue of stones.]
It is unnecessary to repeat the marvelous powers attributed to
particular gems and stones by Albert in his treatise on minerals,
since they are either copied from or similar to those of Marbod, Costa
ben Luca, and Constantinus Africanus. What, however, he has to say on
the general subject of their occult virtue is worth noting. He states
that many doubt if stones really have such powers as to cure ulcers,
counteract poisons, conciliate human hearts, and win victories. Such
sceptics contend that a compound substance like a gem can exert only
such powers as one can account for from the elements which enter
into its composition and the composition itself. Albert grants that
the wonders worked by means of stones seem “more prodigious and
marvelous” than those produced by simple substances, that the physical
constitution of stones does not seem to justify the existence of such
powers in them, and that “the cause of the virtue of stones is indeed
occult.” But he maintains that such occult virtues are well established
by experience, “since we see the magnet attract iron and the adamant
restrict that virtue in the magnet.”[1862] Albert has seen with his own
eyes a sapphire which removed ulcers.
[Sidenote: Due to the stars.]