Chapter VII: Book 32: , chap. i) says: “This fish, if touched by a rod or spear, at (2)

REFERENCES.--For Lul. Raimon, or Raymundus, or Lullius
(1235–1315), “Dict. of Philos. and Psych.,” by J. M. Baldwin,
New York, 1902, Vol. II. p. 32; Humboldt, “Cosmos,” 1849, Vol.
II. pp. 629–631, 670, and 1859, Vol. V. p. 55; Miller, “Hist.
Phil. Ill.,” London, 1849, Vol. II. p. 217; Whewell, “Hist. Ind.
Sc.,” 1859, Vol. I. p. 169; also his “Phil. of the Ind. Sc.,”
London, 1840, Vol. II. pp. 320–323; “Journal des Savants,” 1896,
pp. 342, 345–355; “Biogr. Génér.,” article “Lulle”; Helfferich,
“Raym. L.,” Berlin, 1858; Nicolai Eymerici, “Direct Inq.,” Rome,
1578; Bolton, “Ch. Hist. of Chem.,” pp. 1000–1001; Ueberweg,
“Hist. of Philos.” (Morris’ translation, 1885), Vol. I. pp.
457, 459; “Lives of Alchemystical Philosophers,” by Arthur
Edward Waite, London, 1888, pp. 68–88, in which is given, at pp.
276–306, an alphabetical catalogue of all works on Hermetic
Philosophy and Alchemy; Humboldt, “Examen Critique,” Paris,
1836, Vol. I. pp. 7, 283.

For the Dominican Giordano (Jordano) Bruno, see “The Course of
the History of Modern Philosophy,” by Victor Cousin, New York,
1872, Vol. II. pp. 56–58; “English Cycl.” (Biography), Vol. I.
p. 979; Libri, “Hist. des Sc. Mathém.,” Paris, 1838, Vol. I. p.
141; “La Grande Encycl.,” Vol. VIII. pp. 258–259, reviewed in
the “London Athenæum,” Nov. 28, 1903, p. 711.

Page taken from the 1473 copy, now in the Bibliothèque, Ste.
Geneviève, Paris.]

=A.D. 1250.=--Vincent de Beauvais, another Crusader, writes his “Mirror of Nature” (“Bibliotheca Mundi, Speculum Majus, Speculum Triplex”) for St. Louis and his consort, Marguerite de Provence, and speaks therein of the polarity of the needle (“Speculi Naturalis,” Vol. II. lib. ix. cap. 19). He cites Aristotle as having written a book, “De Lapide,” containing a notice of the magnet’s use in navigation, but none of Aristotle’s known works appear to have the passage given. Cabæus and others rather judge that book to be the work of some Arabic writer (Thomas Creech, “Lucretius”). Libri, however, says that a translation or _abrégé_ of the MS. of “De Lapide” is at the Paris Library--MSS. Arabes, No. 402 (“Hist. des sc. Mathém.,” Vol. I. p. 101).

Le Sieur Petrus Peregrinus de Maricourt (see A.D. 1269) alludes clearly to the polarity of the needle in an epistle, “Ad Sigerum de Foucaucourt--Fontancourt--militem de Magnete,” written toward the end of the thirteenth century, and the magnet is, at about the same period, referred to in the following lines of the minstrel Gauthier d’Espinois, contemporary of the Count of Champagne, Thibaud VI, who lived before the middle of the thirteenth century (“Hist. Lit. de la France,” 1856, Vol. XXIII--chansonniers--pp. 576, 831):

“Tout autresi (ainsi) comme l’aimant déçoit (détourne)
L’aiguilette par force de vertu
A ma dame tot le mont (monde) retennue
Qui sa beauté connoit et aperçoit.”

Vincent de Beauvais applies the terms _zohron_ and _aphron_ (not _afon_) to the south and north ends of the needle, and Mr. J. Klaproth (“Lettre à M. de Humboldt sur l’invention de la Boussole,” Paris, 1834, pp. 49–51), says these words are Arabian, notwithstanding assertions made to the contrary by Martinus Lipenius in his “Navigatio Salomonis Ophiritica Illustrata,” 1660, cap. v. sec. 3, as well as by many others who have written upon the compass.

REFERENCES.--Sonnini, in Buffon, “Minéraux,” VIII. p. 76;
Humboldt, “Cosmos,” 1859–1860, Vol. II. pp. 253–254, and Vol.
V. p. 54; Azuni, “Boussole,” pp. 41, 42, and 44; Klaproth, p.
13; Miller, “History Philosophically Illustrated,” London, 1849,
Vol. I. p. 179, note. “Simonis Maioli ... Dies Caniculares,
seu Colloqui,” XXIII. 1597, p. 783; Dr. F. Ueberweg, “Hist.
of Phil.” (Morris’ translation, 1885), Vol. I. pp. 433, 435;
“Journal des Savants” for Feb.-Mar. 1892; “Vincenti Bellov.
Speculi Naturalis,” Vol. II. lib. ix. cap. 19.

It may be added that the “Mirror of Nature”[12] is one of the four pretentious works which, however popular they may at any time have been and however powerfully they may have influenced the age in which they were written, do not, says Humboldt, fulfil by their contents the promise of their titles. The other three are the “Opus Majus” of Roger Bacon, the “Liber Cosmographicus” (Physical Geography) of Albertus Magnus, and the “Imago Mundi” (Picture of the World) of Cardinal Petrus de Alliaco--Pedro de Helico--Pierre d’Ailly. (For the celebrated French theologian Pierre d’Ailly (1350–1420), Chancellor of the Paris University, see “Histoire de l’Astronomie,” J. F. C. Hœfer, Paris 1873, p. 290; “Paris et ses historiens,” Le Roux de Lincy et L. M. Tisserand, Paris, 1867, p. 402 (etched portrait); “New Int. Encycl.,” New York, 1902, Vol. I. p. 231; “La Grande Encycl.,” Vol. I. pp. 952–954; also works relating to him by Aubrelicque, Compiègne, 1869, by Arthur Dinaux, Cambrai, 1824, and by Geo. Pameyer, Strasbourg, 1840.) The last-named work by Pierre d’Ailly was the chief authority at the time and exercised a greater influence on the discovery of America than did the correspondence with the learned Florentine Toscanelli (Humboldt, “Cosmos,” 1849, Vol. II. p. 621; “La lettre et la carte de Toscanelli,” par Henri Vignaud, Paris, 1901, or “Toscanelli et Christophe Colomb” in the “Annales de Géographie,” No. 56, 11^e année, Mars 15, 1902, pp. 97–110; “Toscanelli in der älteren und neuren Columbus literatur,” E. Geleich Mitteil. Wien, Vol. XXXVI. 10, 1893).

Two of the above-named works partake of the encyclopædic, and in this class likewise properly enter the twenty books “De Rerum Natura” of Thomas Cantapratensis of Louvain (1230), the “Book of Nature,” by Conrad Van Meygenberg of Ratisbon (1349), and the great “Margarita Philosophica,” or “Circle of the Sciences,” of Father Gregorius Reisch (1486). (See the different entries concerning the last-named work at pp. 663–664 of Libri’s Catalogue, Vol. II, for 1861.) One more work bears title “Picture of the World”--“l’Image du Monde”--written by Gautier de Metz, a French poet of the thirteenth century, on the lines of still another encyclopædic “Imago Mundi,” by Honorius d’Autun (Neubauer, “Traductions historiques de l’Image du Monde,” 1876, p. 129; Haase, likewise Fritsche, “Untersuch ... der Image du Monde,” 1879 and 1880; Fant, “l’Image du Monde, étudié dans ses diverses rédactions françaises,” Upsal, 1886. Chas. Bossut, in his “Hist. Générale des Mathém.,” Paris, 1810, Vol. I. p. 229, also mentions an encyclopædic “Mirroir du Monde,” in Turkish _Gian Numah_; “The Final Philosophy,” Chas. W. Shields, New York, 1877, p. 133).

=A.D. 1254.=--Albertus Magnus, of the family of the Counts of Bollstädt, one of the most prominent philosophers and theologians of the Middle Ages, likewise alludes to the book “De Lapide” already referred to at A.D. 1250, and to the Arabic terms _zohron_ and _aphron_, giving to these words, however, a wrong interpretation.[13]

Albertus Magnus (1193–1280) was justly styled _Doctor Universalis_, for, from the time he entered the Order of the Dominican Friars in 1221, as well as throughout his teachings, mainly at Bologna, Strasburg, Freiburg and Cologne, he displayed an intimate acquaintance with almost all branches of the natural sciences. He was especially well versed in philosophy, astronomy and mathematics--_in rebus magicis expertus fuit_--and was justly considered by many as the most erudite philosopher of his generation; an encomium of the very rarest kind, when such rivals as Alexander of Hales and Thomas Aquinas could dispute the palm with him. Natural science, says Humboldt (“Cosmos,” 1860, Vol. II. pp. 243–245), was intimately associated with medicine and philosophy among the learned Arabs, and, in the Christian Middle Ages, with theological polemics. The latter, from their tendency to assert an exclusive influence, repressed empirical inquiry into the departments of physics, organic morphology, and also astronomy, the last being, for the most part, closely allied to astrology. The study of the comprehensive works of Aristotle, introduced by Arabs and by Jewish Rabbis, had tended to lead to a philosophical fusion of all branches of study (Jourdain, “Sur les traductions d’Aristotle,” p. 256; Michael Sachs, “Die Religiöse Poesie der Juden in Spanien,” 1845, s. 180–200), and hence Ibn-Sina (Avicenna), Ibn-Roschd (Averroës), Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon passed for the representatives of all the knowledge of their time. The fame which in the Middle Ages surrounded the names of these four great men was proportionate to the general diffusion of this opinion of their endowments.

Albertus was the first scholastic who systematically reproduced the philosophy of Aristotle with reference to the Arabian commentators and who remodelled it to meet the requirements of ecclesiastical dogma. The cause of the new development of scholasticism in the thirteenth century was the translation, for the first time, into Latin of the complete works of Aristotle, which latter only came to the knowledge of the scholastics (1210–1225) through the agency of Arabian philosophy. The leading Arabian philosophers were Avicenna, Averroës and Avempace, whilst, in the new movement, Albertus Magnus, St. Thomas Aquinas and Joannes Duns Scotus represented the culmination of scholastic thought and its consolidation into a system.[14]

Albertus, according to Humboldt, must be mentioned as an independent investigator in the domain of analytic chemistry, improving as he did the practical manipulation of ores, and having actually enlarged the insight of men into the general mode of action of the chemical forces of nature. His “Liber Cosmographicus” is a singularly able presentment of physical geography. He also wrote very extensively upon plant-life, and is the author of commentaries upon practically all the physical works of the Stagirite, although in the commentary on Aristotle’s “Historia Animalium” he is said to have closely followed the Latin translation of Michael Scotus from the Arabic. Albertus doubtless owes the praise conferred upon him by Dante less to himself than to his beloved pupil Aquinas, who accompanied him from Cologne to Paris in 1245, and returned with him to Germany in 1248.

“Questi, che m’ è a destra più vicino,
Frate e maestro fummi; ed’ esse Alberto
E’ di Cologna, ed io Thomas d’Aquino.”

“Il Paradiso,” X. 97–99.

Gilbert refers to Albertus in “De Magnete,” Book I. chaps, i. and vi., also in Book II. chap. xxxviii.

REFERENCES.--“Albert the Great,” by Dr. Joachim Sighart,
translated by Rev. Fr. J. A. Dixon, London, 1876; “Journal
des Savants” for May 1848 (“D’un ouvrage inédit de Roger
Bacon”: Albertus is called _Magnus in magia naturali, major
in philosophia, maximus in theologia_; Tritheim, “Annales
Hirsaug.,” Vol. I. p. 592); for May 1851, pp. 284–298 _passim_;
for Nov. and Dec. 1884; for June 1891 (“Traditions ... du Moyen
Age”), for Feb. 1892 (“Traductions des ouvrages alchimiques
... arabes; l’alchimie dans Albert le Grand,” pp. 126–128), as
well as for March 1892; “Histoire des Sciences,” par. F. M.
L. Maupied, Paris, 1847 (Albert le Grand), Vol. II. pp. 1–95;
Barthol. Glanvilla, “Liber, de Proprietatibus Rerum,” Book
VII; Pellechet, “Cat. Gen. des Incunables,” 1897, pp. 57–81;
Bolton, “Chronol. Hist. of Chemistry,” 1897, p. 947; “The Great
Schoolmen of the Middle Ages,” by W. J. Townsend, London, 1881,
Chap. X. pp. 165–173; “Siger de Brabant et l’Averroïsme Latin
au xiii^e siècle,” par. Pierre Maudonnet, Fribourg, 1899, pp.
li-lii notes _passim_; Walton and Cotton, “Complete Angler,”
New York and London, 1847, Pt. I. p. 62; “New Int. Encycl.,”
New York, 1902, Vol. I. p. 279; “Aristotle and the Arabs,” by
Wm. M. Sloane, pp. 257–268 of “Classical Studies in Honour of
Henry Drissler,” New York, 1894; Sonnini, Buffon, “Minéraux,”
VIII. p. 76; Enfield, “History of Philosophy,” Book VII. chap
iii.; Humboldt, “Cosmos,” 1849, Vol. II. pp. 617–619; Quétif
and Echard, “Scriptor. Ord. Predicat,” Vol. I. p. 171; Brande,
“Manual,” 1848, Vol. I. p. 8; Dr. Friedrich Ueberweg, “History
of Philosophy,” tr. by Geo. S. Morris, New York, 1885, Vol. I.
pp. 436–440; J. B. Hauréau, “La Philos. Scholas.,” Paris, 1850,
Vol. II. pp. 1–103; Dr. W. Windelband, “History of Philosophy,”
auth. tr. by Jas. H. Tufts, New York, 1853, pp. 311, 313; “Dict.
Hist. de la Médecine,” N. F. J. Eloy, Mons, 1778, Vol. I. pp.
63–65; “Christian Schools and Scholars,” Augusta Th. Drane,
London, 1867, pp. 69, etc.

Of authors prominently cited by Albertus Magnus, or alluded to in the foregoing, the following accounts are given:

Alfarabius--Alpharabius--Abn Nasr Muhammed ... al Farabi--(A.D.
870–950), celebrated Arabian philosopher, native of Turkestan,
one of whose most important works, “Liber de scientiis ...”
is an encyclopædia, giving in five chapters a classification
of all known sciences. It is said he could speak in as many
as seventy languages (J. C. L. S. de Sismondi, “Historical
View of the Literature of the South of Europe,” London, 1846,
Vol. I. p. 65). He was a most zealous student of Aristotle,
and is one of the authors (Aristotle, Avicenna and Al-gazel
being the others) from whom David the Jew compiled his work “De
Causis.” Of the latter, Albertus gives a long description, and
it is likewise cited both by Thomas Aquinas and Bacon, “Opus
Majus,” J. H. Bridges, Oxford, 1897, Vol. I. pp. 100–101, who
quotes: Jourdain, pp. 112, 138–145, 184–185, and Wüstenfeld,
“Geschichte,” Göttingen, 1840.

REFERENCES.--Larousse, “Dict. Univ.,” Vol. I. p. 195; “Biog.
Gen.,” Vol. I. pp. 951–952 and the references therein given;
“New Int. Encycl.,” New York, 1902, Vol. I. pp. 329–330; M.
Stenischneider, “Al-Farabi,” St. Petersb., 1869; Friedrich
Dieterici, “Al-Farabi’s Philosophische Abhandlungen,” Leyden,
1890, and his “Die Philosophie der Araber,” Leyden, 1892, 1895;
Dr. Friedrich Ueberweg, “History of Philosophy,” tr. by Geo. S.
Morris, New York, 1885, Vol. I. pp. 407, 411–412.

Al-gazel--Al-Ghazzali--(1058–1111), another prominent Arabian
philosopher, who was for a long time professor of theology in
the Bagdad University, and became the ruler of the Sufis or
Mystics, in whose behalf he travelled extensively.[15]

The biography in “La Grande Encyclopédie,” Vol. XVIII. pp.
899–900, gives a full account of his most important works and
several valuable references, his principal book being “The
Destruction of the Philosophers,” which called forth a reply in
one of the two most important works of Averroës, entitled “The
Destruction of Destruction.”

Tholuck says: “If ever a man hath deserved the name, Ghazzali
was truly a divine, and he may justly be placed on a level
with Origen [Fr. Dietericii, “Die Philosophie der Araber,”
Leipzig, 1876, pp. 28–31], so remarkable was he for learning and
ingenuity, and gifted with such a rare faculty for the skilful
and worthy exposition of doctrine.”

REFERENCES.--“Encycl. Britann.,” ninth ed., Vol. I.
p. 510; “New Int. Encycl.,” Vol. I. p. 337; “The Alchemy of
Happiness,” by Mohammed Al-Ghazzali, tr. of Henry Guy Homes,
Albany, 1873, pp. 6–7, also Dr. Friedrich Ueberweg, “History of
Philosophy, tr. by Geo. S. Morris, New York, 1885, Vol. I. pp.
407 and 413–414.

Alexander of Hales, so called because he made his studies at the
Monastery of Hales in Gloucestershire (_d._ 1245), called
“Doctor Doctorum” or “Doctor Irrefragabilis,” also “Theologorum
Monarcha,” was a celebrated English theologian. He became a
noted professor of philosophy and then a lecturer among the
Franciscans, being succeeded in turn by his pupils, John of
Rochelle (who died in 1271) and John Fidanza, better known as
Bonaventura (1221–1274). He was the first scholastic acquainted
with the whole of the Aristotelian works and with the Arabian
commentaries upon them. The only authentic work of his is the
ponderous “Summa Universæ Theologiæ” (best edition, Venice,
1576), much of the substance and even the text of which is said
to be found in the “Summa” of Aquinas and in the “Speculum
Morale” of Vincent de Beauvais.

REFERENCES.--“Dict. of Nat. Biog.,” London, 1885, Vol. I. p.
271; “La Grande Encycl.,” Vol. II. p. 121; Fleury, “Hist.
Eccles.,” Vol. XX; Du Boulay, “Hist. de l’univ. de Paris,” Vol.
I.; Stoeckl, “Geschichte d. Phil. d. Mittelalters,” 1865, Vol.
II. pp. 317–326; “Chambers’s Encycl.,” 1888, Vol. I. p. 148;
Ninth “Encycl. Britann.,” Vol. XXI. p. 427; “Dict. of Philos.
and Psychol.,” by J. M. Baldwin, New York, 1901; Vol. I. pp.
30, 124; Wadding, “Annales Ord. Min.”; “New Int. Encycl.,” New
York, 1902, Vol. I. pp. 321–322; Fabricius, “Bibl. Lat. mediæ et
inf. ætat.,” Vol. I. p. 1; “Biog. Gén.,” Vol. I. pp. 923–927;
J. B. Hauréau, “Hist. de la Philos. Scholastique,” 1880, Vol.
I. part ii. pp. 131–141, or the 1850 Paris ed., Vol. I. p. 418;
Dr. Friedrich Ueberweg, “History of Philosophy,” tr. by Geo.
S. Morris, New York, 1885, Vol. I. pp. 433–434; Thos. Fuller,
“Church History of Britain,” London, 1837, Vol. I. pp. 398–402.

Avempace--Abn Bekr Muhammed Ibn Yahga, Arabic philosopher,
physician and poet (_d._ 1138), introduced the peripatetic
philosophy into Andalusia, and wrote commentaries on Aristotle,
in addition to a book, “Conduct of the Individual,” alluded to
by Averroës, likewise several works upon medicine and music.

REFERENCES.--“The History of Philosophy” of Dr.
Friedrich Ueberweg, tr. by Geo. S. Morris, New York, 1885, Vol.
I. p. 414 (Munk, “Mélanges de Philosophie,” pp. 383–410); “New
Int. Encycl.,” New York, 1902, Vol. II. p. 281; Brockelmann,
“Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur”; James Gow, “A Short
History of Greek Mathematics,” Oxford, 1884, pp. 203–205 for
Arabic learning in Spain.

Averroës--Muhammed Ibn Ahmed Ibn-Roschd, “the commentator,” “the
last great thinker of the Moslem world in the West” (1120–1198),
was an illustrious Moorish philosopher and physician best known
by his commentaries and paraphrases upon Aristotle. It is said
Averroës was recommended to the Calif as the fittest person to
expound the works of Aristotle and make them accessible to all
(“History of Classical Scholarship,” J. E. Sandys, Cambridge,
1903, p. 541).

REFERENCES.--Renan, “Averroës et l’Averroïsme,” Paris,
1852; “Dict. of Philos. and Psychology,” by J. M. Baldwin,
New York, 1901, p. 96; “Journal des Savants” for Feb. 1892,
pp. 118–126 _passim_; Antonii, “Bibl. Hisp. Vetus,” Vol.
II. pp. 240–248; Wüstenfeld, “Geschichte d’ Arab. A. V. N.,”
1840; “Engl. Cycl.,” Vol. I. pp. 448–449; Eloy, “Dict. Hist.
de la Médecine,” Vol. I. pp. 220–221; Dr. Friedrich Ueberweg,
“History of Philosophy,” tr. by Geo. S. Morris, New York, 1885,
Vol. I. pp. 407–408, 415–417; Dr. W. Windelband, “History of
Philosophy,” auth. tr. by Jas. H. Tufts, New York, 1893, pp.
317, 338; “Dictionnaire des Sciences Philosophiques,” par une
société de savants, Paris, 1852, Vol. III. pp. 157–172.

“Euclide geometra e Tolommeo,
Ippocrate, Avicenna, e Galieno
Averrois che ’l gran comento feo.”

(Dante, “Divina Commedia,” Inferno, Canto IV.)

Augusta Th. Drane places Averroës at the head of all Arabic
interpreters of Aristotle, and incidentally says it would
be hard to determine his religion, for he scoffed alike at
Christianity, Judaism and Mahometanism.

Avicenna--Abohalis, Ibn Sina, Al Rayis or “the
chief”--(980–1037), “the greatest thinker of the Moslem world
in the East,” a native of Aschena, near Bokhara, was the most
celebrated physician of his day. In the “Journal des Savants”
for March 1892, “l’Alchimie d’Avicenne” is very extensively
treated of at pp. 179–189, and Avicenna is said (“Journal des
Savants” for February 1892, pp. 118–128) to be the alchemist
most frequently alluded to in the “Speculum Naturale” of Vincent
de Beauvais. His writings were so highly esteemed that the
Sultan of Egypt ordered them to be translated by the celebrated
Jewish Rabbi, Maimonides--Moses Ben Maimon--(born at Cordova, in
Spain, about A.D. 1132).

REFERENCES.--Casiri, “Bibl. Arab. Hispan.,” Vol. I. p. 268;
Hottinger, “Bibl. Quadrip.,” 1664, pp. 256, 261; “Dict. des
Sciences Philosophiques,” Paris, 1852, Vol. III. pp. 172–178; S.
Klein, “Dissertatio,” 1846; Houzeau et Lancaster, “Bibl. Gen.,”
Vol. I. pt. i. pp. 469–470; “The Edinburgh Encycl.,” 1830,
Vol. III. p. 107; “Engl. Cycl.,” Vol. I. pp. 449–450; Gilbert,
“De Magnete,” Book I. chaps. i., viii., xv. and Book II. chap.
ii.; Eloy, “Dict. Hist. de la Médecine,” Vol. I. pp. 223–227;
Dr. Friedrich Ueberweg, “History of Philosophy,” tr. by Geo.
S. Morris, New York, 1885, Vol. I. pp. 407, 412–413; Dr. W.
Windelband, “History of Philosophy,” auth. tr. by Jas. H. Tufts,
New York, 1893, p. 317; “New Gen. Biog. Dict.,” London, 1850,
Vol. XII. p. 43; “Dict. of Philosophy and Psychology,” by J. M.
Baldwin, New York, 1901, Vol. I. p. 97; “Lectures on Metaphysics
and Logic,” by Sir Wm. Hamilton, London, 1860, Vol. II. pp. 167,
171; “Historical View of the Literature of the South of Europe,”
by J. C. L. S. de Sismondi, London, 1846, Vol. I.

Duns Scotus, John, “Doctor Subtilis” (born about 1270, died in
1308), a very prominent schoolman, who was educated at Oxford,
entered the Order of St. Francis, and became one of the great
founders of scholastic thought. But little is known as to his
origin, except that a monument, erected to his memory at
Cologne during the year 1533, bears the following: “_Scotia me
genuit, Anglia me suscepit, Gallia me docuit, Colonia (Germania)
me tenet_.”

As shown by Luc. Wadding in his “J. Duns-Scoti Opera,” twelve
volumes, published at Lyons in 1639, his works are quite
numerous, the most important consisting of questions and
commentaries on the writings of Aristotle and on the “Sentences”
of Peter Lombard.

Joannes Duns Scotus is very frequently referred to by Dr. W.
Windelband (“History of Philosophy,” auth. tr. by Jas. H.
Tufts, New York, 1893, pp. 311, 314–315, 321–326, 344), and is
mentioned as “the acutest and deepest thinker of the Christian
Middle Ages, who brought the germs of the philosophy of the
will, contained in Augustine’s system, to their first important
development, and so from the metaphysical side gave the impulse
for a complete change in the direction of philosophical thought.”

REFERENCES.--“Dict. of Nat. Biog.,” London, 1888, Vol. XVI. pp.
216–220; Ritter’s “Geschichte der Philosophie”; Dr. Friedrich
Ueberweg, “History of Philosophy,” tr. by Geo. S. Morris, New
York, 1885, Vol. I. pp. 452–457; Larousse, “Dict. Univ.,” Vol.
VI. p. 1398, containing an extensive list of references; Alfred
Weber, “History of Philosophy,” New York, 1896, pp. 246–252
(tr. of Frank Thilly); “Biog. Gén.,” Vol. XV. pp. 256–257; “La
Grande Encycl.,” Vol. XV. pp. 71–72; Pluanski, “Thèse sur Duns
Scot,” Paris, 1887; “The Great Schoolmen of the Middle Ages,”
W. J. Townsend, London, 1881, “Duns Scotus,” Chap. XV.; J. B.
Hauréau, “La Philosophie Scholastique,” Paris, 1850, Vol. II.
pp. 307–417. Consult also the biographies written by Ferchius,
Berti, Caveili and Veglensis, and, for a complete exposition
of his system, C. Werner, “Die Scholastik des Späteren
Mittelalters,” Vienna, 1881, Vol. I; “Illustrations of the
History of Medieval Thought,” by R. L. Poole, London, 1884.

=A.D. 1254.=--Bacon (Roger), “the most remarkable man in the most remarkable century of the Middle Ages” (E. H. Plumptre, 1866), sometimes called Friar Bacon (1214–1294), a Franciscan monk of Ilchester, who devoted himself to the study of science at Oxford and Paris and “whose deep penetration into the mysteries of nature justly entitled him to the appellation of “The Wonderful Doctor,” treats of the magnet and of its properties at pp. 383–384 of his “Opus Minus” (J. S. Brewer, “Fr. R. Bacon,” London, 1859), and dwells upon the loadstone as a _miraculum in parte notum_.

Bacon is also the author of many other works, the most important of which are his “Opus Majus” and “Opus Tertium” (first published in English respectively in 1733 and 1859), the last named having been originally written out for Pope Clement IV and intended to serve as a preamble to the “Opus Minus” and “Opus Majus,” although it was later than either in the date of its composition (Brewer, _op. cit._ p. xliv). Leland has said that it is easier to collect the leaves of the Sybil than the titles of all of Bacon’s works. At pp. 218–222, Vol. III. of the ninth edition “Encyclopædia Britannica” will be found a synopsis of the six parts into which Jebb divided the “Opus Majus” (pronounced by Whewell “at once the Encyclopædia and the Organum of the thirteenth century”), and likewise an account of his other works, besides numerous references to leading authorities.

In the “Opus Tertium,” the last of the series of three which, it is said, were all completed in about eighteen months, he speaks more than once of A.D. 1267 as being the then current year. This happens to be but two years prior to the date of the epistle of Pierre Pélerin de Maricourt, the great experimentalist (Petrus Peregrinus), whom he commends (p. lxxv) in the following words: “For there are only two perfect mathematicians, Master John of London[16] and Master Peter of Maricourt, the Picard ... who is worth more than any of them ... of whom I have fully written in my ‘Opus Minus’ and of whom I shall write more in its proper place.” Of this Master Peter, whom he calls one of his most illustrious pupils, he further says that, being “struck with the genius that dawned in his countenance,” he took him under his protection from his fifteenth year and instructed him so carefully that he outstripped all of his contemporaries both at Oxford and at Paris. “There is no one,” adds he, “who knows so much of the root of Philosophy ...” and one who, “through experiment, gains such knowledge of things natural, medical, chemical; indeed, of everything in the heavens or earth.”

Gilbert states (“De Magnete,” Book I. chap. i.) that many believe the work of Peter Peregrinus on the magnet owes its origin to the opinions of Roger Bacon. And in the Appendix I to Brewer’s work--p. 537, chap. vi. “De Experimentis Mirabilibus”--will be found Bacon’s views fully exposed on the operations of the magnet.

REFERENCES.--“Fratris Rogeri Bacon, O. M. Opus Majus,” S.
Jebb, Londini, 1733; “L’Alchimie et les Alchimistes,” Paris,
1860, by Louis Figuier, who, at p. 97, calls Roger Bacon _La
plus vaste intelligence que l’Angleterre ait possédée_; “Essai
Théorique ... des connaissances humaines,” par G. Tiberghien,
Bruxelles, 1844, Vol. I. pp. 388–389; Dr. Geo. Miller, “History
Philosophically Illustrated,” London, 1849, Vol. II. p. 112;
Humboldt, “Cosmos,” New York, 1860, Vol. II. pp. 43, 229, 241,
245, 318; “Journal des Savants” for March, April, May and
August 1848, also for December 1859 and February 1891; “Origin,
Progress and Destiny of the English Language and Literature,”
by John A. Weisse, New York, 1879, pp. 28, 233–234, 236, 424;
“History of Latin Christianity,” by Henry Hart Milman, London,
1857, Vol. VI. pp. 279–303; “Opus Majus,” by John Henry
Bridges, Oxford, 1897, Vol. I. pp. xxv-xxvi, and Vol. II. pp.
203–206, containing a valuable tabulated list of facts relating
to Bacon’s life; “Roger Bacon,” par Emile Charles, Paris, 1861,
pp. 15–19, 339–391; “De Bibliorum Textibus,” by Dr. Hody; Wm.
Whewell, “History of the Inductive Sciences,” 1858, Vol. I. pp.
512–522, or 1859, Vol. I. pp. 209–210, 245–246, 512–522, Vol.
II. p. 55; also “Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,” London,
1840, Vol. II. pp. 323–337; “The Philosophical Magazine,” Vol.
XII. pp. 327–337; Enfield, Book VII. chap. iii.; “Catalogue
Général des livres imprimés de la Bibliothèque Nationale,”
Paris, 1901, Vol. VI. pp. 256–259; “Encyclopædia Britannica,”
Edinburgh, 1842, seventh edition. Vol. I. as per Index at p. 17;
“Les Editions de Roger Bacon” in the “Journal des Savants” for
July 1905.

Page taken from the 15th century Ms. in the Bibliothèque
Nationale, Paris.]

=A.D. 1260.=--Brunetto Latini, _b._ 1230, _d._ 1294, “maestro del divino poeta Dante,” celebrated Florentine encyclopædist, composes his “Tesoro,” rewritten in French (“Livres dou Trésor”), wherein he speaks clearly of the compass as at some time likely to be useful at sea. But he adds: “No master mariner dares to use it, lest he should fall under the supposition of being a magician; nor would even the sailors venture themselves out to sea under his command if he took with him an instrument which carries so great an appearance of being constructed under the influence of some infernal spirit.”

The “Tesoro” is said to be a kind of abridgment of the Bible, of Pliny, of Solinus, of the Ethics of Aristotle, of the rhetorical writings of Cicero and of the political works of Aristotle, Plato and Xenophon (“New Biog. Dict.,” London, 1850, Vol. IX. p. 205). It would be well to consult “La Table Générale des bulletins ... Sociétés Savantes,” par M. Octave Teissier, Paris, 1873, p. 44, regarding the collection of different manuscripts of Brunetto’s extensive work.

REFERENCES.--Davis, “The Chinese,” 1844, Vol. III. p. xi;
Venanson, “Boussole,” pp. 75, 148–154; Azuni, “Boussole,” p.
139; Klaproth, “Boussole,” pp. 45–46; “Journal des Savants”
for January 1865, also for January and February 1880; “The
Monthly Magazine” for June 1802; Libri, “Hist. des Sciences
Mathématiques,” Paris, 1838, Vol. II. pp. 64, 152–156.

=A.D. 1265–1321.=--Dante--Durante--(Alighieri), illustrious Italian poet, regarded as the greatest poetical genius that flourished between the Augustan and Elizabethan ages, composed, during his exile, the “Divina Commedia,” which was the first poem written in the Italian language. In Canto XII. vv. 28–30 of his “Paradiso,” translated by Dr. Plumptre, he thus alludes to the mariner’s compass:

“Then from the heart of one of those new lights,
There came a voice which made me turn to see,
E’en as the star the needle’s course incites.”

Guido Guinicelli (1240–1276), priest and scholar, and whom Dante considered not only the greatest of living Bolognese poets, but his master in poetry (Note: “Purg.,” XXVI. Vol. I. p. 327, v. 92) refers to the nautical compass in nearly the same terms as Dante (“Rime. Ant.,” p. 295). He adds: “The mountains of loadstone give the virtue to the air of attracting iron, but, because it (the loadstone) is far off, (it) wishes to have the help of a similar stone to make it (the virtue) work, and to direct the needle toward the star” (P. L. Ginguené, “Hist. Lit. d’Italie,” Vol. I. p. 413; Guido delle Colonne--Io Colonna da Messina--Mandella Lett. p. 81, Florence, 1856).

At pp. 35 and 130 of Bertelli’s “Pietro Peregrino di Maricourt,” Roma, 1868, Memoria prima, appear verses said to be by Guinicelli and by Guido delle Colonne, judge of Messina, who flourished about 1250, and which are translated literally into English as follows:

“In those parts under foreign skies
Are the mountains of loadstone,
_Which give power to the air_
To attract iron, but, because distant,
It requires to have assistance from similar stones,
To bring it into use,
And direct the needle towards the star.

The learned relate that the loadstone
Could not attract
Iron by its power,
_Were it not that the air between them aids_;
Although the calamite is a stone,
The other existing stones
Are not so powerful
To attract, because they have not the influence.”

The “Paradiso,” translated by A. J. Butler, London, 1885, Canto XII. v. 29, reads: “_Si mosse voce, che l’ago (needle) alla stella_,” and Fazio degli Uberti in the “Dittamondo” (about 1360) has “_Quel gran disio, che mi, traeva addietro come ago a calamita_” (III. 2).

REFERENCES.--Hœfer, “Nouv. Biog. Gén.,” Vol. XIII. pp. 21–50,
the last-named page containing an unusual number of citations;
“Biblogr. Dantesca,” by Colomb de Batines, Prato, 1845–1846; “La
Grande Encyclopédie,” Vol. XIII. pp. 887–901, embracing many
additional references; the note at p. 154 of Plumptre’s “Dante,”
also Humboldt’s “Cosmos,” 1849, Vol. II. p. 629; Libri, “Hist.
des Sc. Math.,” Paris, 1838, Vol. II. pp. 164, etc.; Frederic
C. Harrison, “The New Calendar of Great Men,” London, 1892, pp.
310–315.

Dante Alighieri. “La Divina Commedia,” Mantuae 1472, the first
page of what is by many regarded as the oldest edition of the
earliest known poem written in the Italian language.

Now in the Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève, Paris.]

=A.D. 1266.=--It is shown by Th. Torffæus (Latin for Thormodr Torfason), an Icelandic scholar (_b._ 1636, _d._ 1719), who published “Historia Rerum Norvegicarum” (Hafniæ, 1711, IV. c. 4, p. 345), that at this date the northern nations were acquainted with the mariner’s compass. In the “History of Norway” here alluded to, he mentions the fact that the poem of the Icelandic historian, Jarl Sturla (Snorri Sturlason) written in 1213, on the death of the Swedish Count Byerges, was rewarded with a box containing a mariner’s compass.

REFERENCES.--Suhm, “In effigien Torfæi, una cum Torfænis”;
“Nouv. Biogr. Générale de Hœfer,” Vol. XLV. p. 495; “New Gen.
Biog. Dict.,” London, 1850, Vol. XII. p. 263; Jessen, “Norge,”
pp. 83–99; Larousse, “Dict. Univ.,” Vol. XV. p. 312; Michaud,
“Biog. Univ.,” Vol. XLI. p. 683.

=A.D. 1269.=--Peregrinus (Petrus), Pierre Pélerin de Maricourt, Méhéricourt--Magister Petrus de Maharnecuria, Picardus--doubtless a Crusader, was, as Roger Bacon tells us (“Opus Tertium,” cap. xi) the only one, besides Master John of London, who, at this period, could be deemed a thoroughly accomplished, perfect mathematician, and was one who understood the business of experimenting in natural philosophy, alchemy and medicine better than any one else in Western Europe.

Peregrinus is the author of a letter or epistle, “Written in camp at the Siege of Lucera (delle Puglie--Nucerræ) in the year of our Lord 1269, on the 8th day of August,” addressed to his _Amicorum intime_, a soldier, by the name of Sygerus de Fontancourt--Foucaucourt--Foucancort.

Of this epistle, which is the earliest known work of experimental science, there are but few reliable complete manuscript copies. Most of these have been very ably analyzed by P. D. Timoteo Bertelli Barnabita in the exhaustive Memoirs published by him in Rome during 1868, and still better detailed by Dr. Silvanus P. Thompson in his several valuable printed researches and lectures on the subject, but there has been of it only one printed issue in book form, that of the Lindau physician, A. P. Gasser, which appeared at Augsburg during 1558.

Several attempts at translation have been made, notably by Guillaume Libri (“Histoire des Sciences Mathématiques ...” Paris, 1838, Vol. II. p. 487) who admitted that, with the aid of several paleographers, he could not decipher many of the abbreviated faint characters existing in the Bibliothèque Nationale manuscript (No. 7378A in quarto, at folio 67), and by Tiberius Cavallo, who does scarcely better with the Leyden copy (Fol. Cod. No. 227) which was discovered by him, and but a portion of which he transcribes in the supplement to his “Treatise on Magnetism,” London, 1800, pp. 299–320. A translation was also made by Brother Arnold, of the La Salle Institute in Troy, N.Y., and published during 1904, but the most meritorious version now existing is the one entitled “Done into English by Silvanus P. Thompson from the printed Latin versions of Gasser 1558, Bertelli 1868, and Hellmann 1898, and amended by reference to the manuscript copy in his possession, formerly amongst the Phillipps’ manuscripts, dated 1391.” This translation, “printed in the year 1902, in the Caxton type, to the number of 250 copies,” reflects very great credit upon Prof. Thompson, who has given us such a faithful interpretation of the original work as would naturally be expected at his hands, and who has, besides, rubricated this right royal little volume and caused it to be issued in one of the most attractive typographical fashions of the Chiswick Press.

The Hellmann 1898 Berlin version just alluded to, which appeared in “Neudrucke von Schriften und Karten ...” No. 10 (_Rara Magnetica_), contains a photographic reproduction of the Augsburg 1558 title-page, and, it may be added, the volume of Phillipps’ manuscripts, of which Prof. Thompson became the fortunate possessor, includes one of Chaucer’s treatises on the Astrolabe, besides the Peregrinus’ manuscript in question.

During the year 1562 much of the original epistle was pilfered by Joannes Taisnier Hannonius, who badly condensed and deformed it and incorporated it as new matter, conjointly with some papers of his own, in a book entitled “Oposculum ... de Natura Magnetis et ejus effectibus ...” Coloniæ, 1562; and that much was translated “into Englishe” by Richarde Eden, London, about 1579, under title of “A very necessarie and profitable booke concerning navigation.”

Much has been said at different times regarding the contents of the above-named epistle, the full title of the Paris MS. No. 7378 of which reads

“_Epistola Petri Peregrini de Maricourt ad Sygerum de Foucaucourt
militem de magnete_,”

but no _résumé_ of it could better be given than by quoting here its first page, which has been translated as follows:

This treatise on the magnet contains two parts, of which Part I
is complete in ten chapters, and Part II in three.

Of Part I: Chap. I states the object of the work;

Chap. II, of what the investigator in this line of work should
be;

Chap. III, of a knowledge of the loadstone;

Chap. IV, of the science of the discovery of the parts of the
loadstone;

Chap. V, of the source of the discovery of poles in the
loadstone--which of them is the north and which the south;

Chap. VI, in what manner a magnet attracts a magnet;

Chap. VII, how iron touched with the magnet turns towards the
poles of the globe;

Chap. VIII, in what manner a magnet attracts iron;

Chap. IX, why the northern part attracts the southern part, and
the converse;

Chap. X, of the inquiry whence the magnet derives the natural
power it possesses.

The earliest known treatise of experimental science, now in
the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.]

Of Part II: Chap. I, on the construction of an instrument
(floating compass) by which the azimuth of the sun and moon, and
of any star above the horizon, can be ascertained;

Chap. II, on the construction of a better instrument (pivoted
compass) for like purpose;

Chap. III, on the construction of a wheel for perpetual motion.

An analyzation of each chapter in turn will show how satisfactorily Peregrinus has developed, in connected series, all of the early experiments upon which are based his theories of the loadstone.