In connection with the subject of elections Michael gives a list of the prayers, conjurations, and images appropriate for each of the twelve hours of the day and of the night.[1054] For instance, in the first hour of the day men pray to God and it is a good time to bind all tongues by images, characters, and conjurations. In the second hour angels pray to God and images and other devices to promote love and concord should be constructed then. In the third hour birds and fishes pray to God and it is a good time to make images and other contrivances to catch birds and fish. In the first hour of the night demons hold colloquy with their lord and the time is favorable for the invocation of spirits.

A more Christian and less magical enumeration of the hours occurs in the Liber particularis.[1055] At morning Christ was arrested on the Mount of Olives. In the first hour Christ was presented to Ananias and Caiaphas, the high priests; in the third hour, to Pontius Pilate; in the sixth hour He was brought back to Herod and taken to Mount Calvary; in the ninth He was given vinegar and gave up the ghost and the earth quaked and the veil of the temple was rent in twain; at vespers He was taken down from the cross. Another specimen of this quaint religious science is found in the Liber introductorius,[1056] where Michael, writing before the invention of the telescope, speaks of the limits set to seeing into the heavens except by special grace of God, as in the case of Katherine and of Stephen, the first martyr, who, when stoned, saw the heavens opened. A third example occurs in the third part of the opus magnum, or Phisionomia, where it is stated that at birth a male child cries “Oa” and a female child “Oe,” as if to say respectively, “O Adam (or, O Eve) why have you sinned that I on your account must suffer infinite misery?”[1057] In the same work Michael gives original sin as one of two reasons why a baby cannot talk and walk as soon as it is born.[1058]

The third part of Scot’s main work, and the only section which has been printed, is that primarily devoted to the pseudo-science of physiognomy, which endeavors to determine a man’s character from signs furnished by the various parts of his body. The Phisionomia[1059] is addressed to the Emperor Frederick II who is exhorted to the pursuit of learning in general and the science of physiognomy in particular. This is probably a conscious or unconscious imitation of the remarks addressed to Alexander by the Pseudo-Aristotle in The Secret of Secrets, of which also a considerable portion is devoted to physiognomy, and from which Rasis and Michael borrowed a good deal.[1060] Indeed, the Phisionomia of Michael Scot is also often entitled De secretis naturae and really only a certain portion of it is devoted exclusively to physiognomy proper. Its early chapters and first part deal rather with the process of generation and it is only with the twenty-third chapter and second part that Michael “reverts to the doctrine of physiognomy.” Perhaps these chapters on generation had more to do with the popularity and frequent printing of the work than did those on physiognomy.

In this discussion of the process of human generation the influence of the stars receives ample recognition. Michael regards the moment of conception as of great astrological importance; then according to the course of the stars and the disposition of the bodies conceiving the foetus receives “similarly and simultaneously” each and all of the determining factors in its subsequent nature and history.[1061] This we may perhaps regard as a medieval approach to the theory of Mendel. Michael further urges every woman to note the exact moment of sexual intercourse, when this is to result in generation, and so make astrological judgment easy.[1062] Yet he states later that God gives a new and free soul with the new body, just as a father might give his son a new tablet on which to write whatever he wills of good or evil.[1063] He notes the correspondence of the menstrual fluid to the waxing and waning of the moon and that planet’s influence during the seventh month of the formation of the child in the womb,[1064] and gives the usual account of the babe’s chances of life or death according as it is born within seven months, or during the eighth, or ninth, or tenth month. It is not quite clear if it is because there are seven planets that Michael affirms that a woman can bear as many as seven children at once.[1065] He adds that in this case the child conceived in the middle one of the seven cells of the matrix will be a hermaphrodite.[1066]

Scot’s treatise on Physiognomy has considerable to say of other forms of divination and they here appear in a more favorable light than in his discussion of varieties of the magic arts in the preface preceding his Liber introductorius. Among signs to tell whether a pregnant woman will give birth to a boy or a girl he suggests “a chiromantic experiment”[1067] which consists simply in asking her to hold out her hand. If she extends the right, the child will be a boy; if the left, a girl. He also expounds methods of augury at some length, although again stating that they are in the canons of the church, that is to say prohibited by canon law. The divisions of space employed in augury are twelve in number after the fashion of the signs of the zodiac.[1068] Michael also discusses the significance of sneezes. If anyone sneezes twice or four times while engaged in some business and immediately rises and moves about, he will prosper in his undertaking. If one sneezes twice in the course of the night for three successive nights, it is a sign of death or some catastrophe in the house. If after making a contract one sneezes once, it is a sign that the agreement will be kept inviolate; but if one sneezes thrice, the pact will not be observed.[1069]

Dreams and their interpretation are also discussed in the Physionomia.[1070] The age of the dreamer, the phase of the moon, and the stage reached in the process of digestion, all have their bearing upon interpretation. A dream which occurs before the process of digestion has started either has no significance or concerns the past. The dream which comes while the food is being digested has to do with the present. Only when the process of digestion has been completed do dreams occur which signify concerning the future. In order to recall a dream in the morning Michael recommends sleeping upon one’s other side for the remainder of the night or rubbing the back of the head the next day. Some dreams signify gain, others loss; some joy, others sadness; some sickness, others health, others war; some labor, others rest. For instance, to catch a bird signifies gain, to lose a bird in one’s dream signifies loss; to mourn in dreams portends joy, to laugh indicates grief. The rest of his discussion of dreams Scot limits to their significance in matters of health and physical constitution. He takes up dreams indicative of predominance of blood, red cholera, phlegm, and melancholy respectively; of heat, cold, dryness, and humidity; of excess of humors and of bad humors.

While on the subject of divination we may note that a geomancy[1071] and a chiromancy[1072] have been ascribed to Michael Scot, and also prophetic verses concerning the fate of Italian cities in the style of the Sibylline verses and prophecies of Merlin. Brown held that the evidence for the authenticity of these verses was as convincing as that for any event in Scot’s life.[1073]

It would not be surprising to find that Michael himself practiced medicine as well as astrology, in view of the attention given to human physiology and the process of generation in his Physiognomy and elsewhere, and the interest in biology which his translation of the Aristotelian works on animals evidences. A treatise on prognostication from the urine is ascribed to him[1074] and “Pills of Master Michael Scot” are mentioned in at least one manuscript,[1075] where they are declared to be good for all diseases and of virtue indescribable.

Michael’s general allusion to the occult virtue of words, herbs, and stones in the Liber introductorius may be supplemented by a few specific examples of the same from the other two divisions of his main work. In the Liber particularis he mentions such virtues of stones as the property of the agate to reveal various signs of demons and illusions of enchantment, and the power of the jasper to render its bearer rich, amiable, and eloquent.[1076] In the Phisionomia he suggests that persons who cannot maintain physical health without frequent sexual intercourse may be able to do so by carrying a jasper or topaz.[1077] He also states that bathing in the blood of a dog or of two-year-old infants mixed with hot water “undoubtedly cures leprosy,”[1078] and that many sorceries can be wrought by use of the menstrual fluid, semen, hairs of the head, blood, and footprints in dust or mud.[1079]

Michael Scot’s Commentary upon the Sphere of Sacrobosco[1080] confines itself rather more strictly to astronomical and astrological topics than did the Liber introductorius, but otherwise their contents are not dissimilar. In the Commentary Michael discusses such questions as whether the universe is eternal, one or many, and what form or figure it should have; whether the mover of the sky is moved, whether the stars are spherical bodies, and whether the zone between the tropic of Capricorn and the Antarctic Circle is temperate and inhabited. Also whether the elements are four in number, and whether the heavens include a ninth sphere. One argument against its existence is that there are no stars in it, on which account some hold that it would exert no influence upon the earth. But Michael replies that it has light apart from any starry bodies and by virtue of this light does exert influence. Other astrological questions which he raises are whether the signs of the zodiac should be designated by the names of animals, whether the first heaven is a more potent cause of generation and corruption than the circle of the zodiac is, whether celestial bodies have particular properties as terrestrial bodies do, whether the heavens are animate, whether their motion is natural or voluntary, whether the motion of the planets is rational, and whether supercelestial bodies act upon inferiors by virtue of their motion. In mentioning the departments of life over which the seven planets rule, Michael cites either theologians or astrologers[1081] to the effect that Saturn signifies concerning pagans, Jews, and all other adversaries of the Faith, who are slow to believe just as Saturn is slow of movement and chilling in effect, while Jupiter is the sign of true believers and Christians.

In commenting upon Sacrobosco’s concluding passage concerning the miraculous eclipse at the time of Christ’s passion and the remark attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite, “Either the God of nature suffers or the machine of the universe is dissolved,” Michael explains that ancient Athens was divided into three parts. One of these was the shore which was consecrated to Neptune, but in place of the plain and the mountains, Michael appears to take a leaf out of Plato’s Republic and mentions the region of the warriors, dedicated to Pallas, goddess of war, and the residential quarter of the philosophers, named the Areopagus from Ares meaning virtue and pagus meaning villa. According to Michael the altar to the unknown god was erected by Dionysius the Areopagite at the time of the darkness and earthquake accompanying Christ’s passion, and when Paul came and preached the Christ whom he ignorantly worshiped, Dionysius was converted, and became a missionary to the Gauls, bishop of Paris, and finally gained a martyr’s crown.

In the Liber Introductorius Michael seemed to associate alchemy with the magic arts. In his Commentary on the Sphere his attitude is more favorable. After citing the fourth book of the Meteorology and other passages from Aristotle to the effect that no element can be corrupted and hence the transmutation striven after by the alchemists is impossible, Michael explains that the word element may be taken in two senses. As a part of the universe it is neither generable nor corruptible, but in so far as an element is mixed with active and passive qualities, it is both generable and corruptible.[1082]

Thanks perhaps to this passage the composition or translation of several works of alchemy is ascribed to Michael Scot in manuscripts or printed editions. The Quaestio curiosa de natura Solis et Lunae, which was printed as Michael’s in two editions of the Theatrum Chemicum,[1083] was apparently written after his death.[1084] A Palermo manuscript contains among other alchemical tracts a “Book of Master Michael Scot in which is contained the mastery.”[1085] In at least one manuscript Michael Scot is called the translator of the Liber luminis luminum, of which Rasis is elsewhere mentioned as the original author.[1086] In an Oxford manuscript a De alchemia is attributed to Michael Scot. It is addressed to “you, great Theophilus, king of the Saracens”[1087] rather than to the Emperor Frederick, and speaks of “the noble science” of alchemy as “almost entirely rejected among the Latins.” Michael Scot mentions himself by name in it rather too often for us to accept the treatise as his without question, while the allusions to “Brother Elias” the Franciscan as a fellow-worker in alchemy are perhaps also open to suspicion.

We find, however, another suggestion of Brother Elias’s interest in alchemy and association therein with Michael Scot in the fact that in the same manuscript containing the translation of the Liber luminis luminum ascribed to Michael occurs another Liber lumen luminum which Brother Elias, General of the Friars Minor, edited in Latin for the Emperor Frederick.[1088] A brother Cyprian translated it from Arabic into Latin for him. In view of the later interest of another Franciscan friar, Roger Bacon, in alchemy and the supposition which some have entertained that he was persecuted by his Order because of his experimental studies, this reputation of Brother Elias as an alchemist is interesting to note. One of St. Francis’s earliest followers, he succeeded him in 1226 as General of the Order. Deposed by the pope in 1230 on the charge of promoting schism in the Order, he was re-elected in 1236 and was again deposed by the pope in 1239, after which he joined the imperial party and was excommunicated from 1244 until just before his death in 1253.[1089] Brown suggested that his alchemical activities were alluded to by the pope on the occasion of his first deposition in the words “mutari color optimus auri ex quo caput erat compactum.”[1090] But if Elias was an alchemist, no open objection to this appears to have been made either by the pope or his Order. Indeed, many of the alchemists in Italy of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were clergy and even friars.[1091]

Brown has already discussed the contents of the Liber luminis luminum and De alchemia (or, alchimia)[1092] but erroneously and from not quite the same standpoint as ours. He incorrectly interprets “the secrets of nature” which the writer says he has investigated as the title of a book which has formed his chief source.[1093] Brown also states that one of several features which distinguishes the De alchemia from the Liber luminis “is an early passage which refers to the correspondence between the metals and the planets.”[1094] But there is a similar passage connecting seven metals with the seven planets in the opening paragraph of his own printed text of the Liber luminis luminum.[1095] The latter treatise, brief as it is, divides into five parts dealing with salts, alums, vitriols, spirits, and the preparation of alums, and the employment of these in transmutation. The De alchemia is less orderly in arrangement and seems largely a brief collection of particular recipes for transmutation.

Both works emphasize the secret character of alchemy. The De alchemia holds forth concerning the great secret of Hermes and Ptolemy, and tells how most men’s eyes are blinded, and to how few the truth of the art is revealed. The Liber luminis luminum narrates that “when the great philosopher was dying he said to his son, ‘O my son, hold thy secret in thy heart, nor tell it to anyone, nor to thy son, unless when thou canst retain it no longer.’ Wise philosophers have yearned with yearning to know the truth of this salt. But few have known it and those who have known it have not told in their books the truth concerning it as they saw it.”[1096] Both works also are largely experimental in form and in the De alchemia we are assured more than once that “I, Michael Scot, have experienced this many times.”[1097] The books of the ancients and past philosophers are cited both in general and by name, but a black vitriol from France called French earth[1098] and a gum found in Calabria and at Montpellier[1099] are mentioned as well as herbs and minerals from India and Alexandria, and we also hear of the experiments of brother Elias, certain Saracens who seem of comparatively recent date, and of the operation at Catania or Cortona by master Jacob the Jew which “I afterwards proved many times.”[1100] The Liber luminis luminum often speaks of “the great virtue” of this or that, and both treatises make much use of animal substances such as “dust of moles,” the urine of the taxo or of a boy, the blood of a ruddy man or of an owl or frog. Five toads are shut up in a vessel and made to drink the juices of various herbs with vinegar as the first step in the preparation of a marvelous powder for purposes of transmutation.[1101]