Chapter LIX: Albertus Magnus (1)

_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.]