Many allusions to magic occur in Albert’s treatise on minerals, as the especially marvelous powers attributed to gems in antiquity might well lead us to expect. The magi, he tells us, make much use of the stone diacodos, which is said to excite phantasms but loses its virtue if it touches a corpse.[1828] But such things do not come within Albert’s present scope; he refers the reader for further information to the books of magic of Hermes, Ptolemy, and Thebith ben Chorath. The stone magnet is also stated in the magic books to have a marvelous power of producing phantasms, especially if consecrated with an adjuration and a character.
Albert twice assures us that the “prodigious and marvelous” powers of stones, and more particularly of images and seals engraved on stones, cannot be really understood without a knowledge of the three other sciences of magic, necromancy, and astrology.[1829] He therefore will not in this treatise on minerals discuss the subject as fully as he might, “since those powers cannot be proved by physical laws (principiis physicis), but require a knowledge of astronomy and magic and the necromantic sciences, which should be considered in other treatises.”[1830] For the reason why gems were first so engraved he refers his readers to “the science of the magi which Magor Graecus and Germa of Babylon and Hermes the Egyptian were among the first to perfect, and in which later wise Ptolemy was a marvelous light and Geber of Spain; Tebith, too, handed down a full treatment of the art.”[1831] And in this science it is a fundamental principle that all things produced by nature or art are influenced by celestial virtues. Thus we comprehend the close connection of astrology and magic. As for necromancy, the third “science” involved, Albert’s associates are curious to know the doctrine of images even if it is necromancy, and Albert does not hesitate to assure them that it is a good doctrine in any case. Yet in his theological writings he not only condemned necromancy, but declared the art of images to be evil “because it inclines to idolatry by imputing divinity to the stars, and ... is employed for idle or evil ends.”[1832]
Albert again refers to magic in his discussion of alchemy in the treatise on minerals, where he not only cites Hermes a great deal but refers to writings by Avicenna on magic and alchemy.[1833] Albert holds that it is not the business of a physical or natural scientist (physicus) to determine concerning the transmutation of metals; that is the affair of the art of alchemy, which thus seems to lie outside the field of natural science upon the borders of magic. Similarly the problem in what places and mountains and by what signs metals are discovered falls partly within the sphere of natural science and partly belongs to that magical science which has to do with finding hidden treasure. Albert perhaps has the employment of the divining rod in mind.
The occult virtue of the human mind is another matter which Albert seems inclined to place within the field of magic. In the treatise on minerals[1834] he remarks that whether fascination is true or not is a question for magic to settle, and in his On Sleep and Waking[1835] he cites Avicenna and Algazel as adducing “fascination and magic virtues” as examples of occult influence exerted by one man over another. It will be remembered that he cited the same authors anent fascination in his Commentary on the Sentences,[1836] but there denied that fascination or magic could harm anyone who had firm faith in God, although he illustrated the possibility of potent human occult virtue exercised at will by the marvelous virtues exerted constantly by the sapphire and emerald. Peter of Prussia gives us to understand that Albert’s belief was that fascination did not operate naturally but by the aid of demons; nevertheless certain men are generated at rare intervals who work marvels like the twins in Germany in Albert’s time at whose approach bolts would open.[1837]
Albert also regards the interpretation of dreams as especially the affair of magic. In one passage of On Sleep and Waking[1838] he grants that probably the art of interpreting dreams cannot be acquired without a knowledge of magic and “astronomy.” In a second passage[1839] he speaks of the magicians as teaching the interpretation of dreams and the “astronomers” as talking of signs of prophecies, but not the sort of prophecy accepted among theologians. In a third passage[1840] he defines the kind of dreams “which wise men interpret and for which was invented the art of interpretation in the magical sciences.” Albert seems to have no particular objection, either moral or religious, to the interpretation of dreams, even if it is a branch of magic. Rather he censures Aristotle and other philosophers for not having investigated this side of the subject further, and he thinks that by physical science alone one can at least determine what sort of dreams are of value for purposes of divination and are susceptible to interpretation.[1841] Magicians make great use not only of dreams but also of visions seen when one is awake but with the senses distracted.[1842] The magicians indeed specialize in potions which clog and stupefy the senses, and thereby produce apparitions by means of which they predict the future.
In this same treatise On Sleep and Waking Albert lists together “the astronomer and augur and magician and interpreter of dreams and visions and every such diviner.”[1843] He admits that almost all men of this type delight in deception and are poorly educated and confuse what is contingent with what is necessary, but he insists that “the defect is not in the science but in those who abuse it.” Thus magic and divination in general are closely associated.
This last passage, like the connecting of enchanters and necromancers with magic which we have noted in a previous paragraph, is hard to reconcile with the passage in his commentary upon the Gospel of Matthew where Albert separated the Magi and magic from diviners, enchanters, necromancers, and their arts. So far as mere classification is concerned, Albert’s references to magic in his scientific writings are in closer accord with his discussion of magic in the Summa and Sentences, where too he associated magic with the stars, with occult virtues, with fascination, and with images. But the emphasis which he there laid upon the evil character of magic and its connection with demons is now almost entirely lacking. Our attention is rather being continually called to how closely magic, or at least some parts of it, border upon natural science and astronomy. And yet we are also always being reminded that magic, although itself a “science,” is essentially different in methods and results from natural science or at least from what Albert calls “physical science.” Overlapping both these fields, apparently, and yet rather distinct from both in Albert’s thought, is the great subject of “astronomy” which includes both the genuine natural science and the various vagaries of astrology. It is all like some map of a feudal area where certain fiefs owe varying degrees of fealty to, or are claimed by, several lords and where the frontiers are loose, fluctuating, and uncertain. Perhaps the rule of the stars can be made to account for almost everything in natural science or in magic, but Albert seems inclined to leave room for the independent action of divine power, the demons, and the human mind and will. But his attitude to the stars and to astrology will be considered more fully later; we shall first examine in more detail his own attitude towards marvelous virtues in inferior nature and towards some of the other matters which he has located expressly or by implication along the ill-defined frontier of “magic and astronomy.” In concluding the present section let us make the one further observation that while Albert describes magic differently and even inconsistently in different passages, it is evident enough that he is trying to describe the same thing all the time.
So many instances have already been given from other authors of the occult virtues ascribed to parts of animals that we shall note in Albert’s treatise on animals only two or three passages, chiefly for purposes of comparison. The properties which he ascribes to the carcass of the lion,[1844] for instance, bear a certain resemblance to Pliny’s paragraph on its medicinal virtues and to Thomas of Cantimpré’s compilation concerning it, yet are considerably different. Its fat is hotter than that of other animals, and they flee from anyone who is anointed with it, while fumigation therewith keeps wolves away from sheep. A diet of lion’s flesh benefits paralytics. Garments wrapped in its skin are secure from moths, and the hair falls out of a wolf’s skin which is left near a lion’s skin. If the tooth of a lion which is called caninus is suspended about a boy’s neck before he loses his first teeth, he will be free from toothache when his second teeth come. Lion’s fat mixed with other unguents removes blotches, and rubbing cancer with its blood cures that disease. Drinking a little of its gall cures jaundice; its liver in wine checks pain in the liver. Its brain, if eaten, causes madness; but remedies deafness, if inserted in the ear with some strong oil. Its testicle, administered pulverized with roses, causes sterility—a case, it would seem, of sympathetic magic operating by contraries. But no doctrine of sympathy and antipathy is needed to explain the further assertion that its excrement drunk with wine makes one abhor wine.
The last two items are very characteristic of Albert’s section on quadrupeds, where the medicinal and other properties of such parts as stercus, virga, and testiculus are incessantly mentioned, and are sometimes used in charms, as in the following: “Si virga lupi in alicuius nomine viri vel mulieris ligetur, non poterit coire donec nodus ille solutus fuerit.”[1845] The saliva of a fasting human being cures abscesses and removes scars and blotches.[1846] It kills serpent or scorpion, if it falls into its mouth or wound so as to reach its inner parts. If the tip of an arrow or sword has touched the lips of a fasting man, it inflicts a poisonous wound, say those who have tested it. Others say that if the wax and dirt from dogs’ ears are smeared on wicks of new cotton, and these are placed in a crucible in green oil and lighted, the heads of persons present will appear entirely bald.[1847] This sort of half-magical, half-chemical experiment with various combustible or illuminating compositions, which are supposed to produce optical or other illusions, is not infrequently met with in medieval manuscripts, especially alchemical ones, and we shall in a later chapter encounter further specimens thereof in works ascribed to Albert himself.
Albert is rather unusually sceptical concerning dragons, which are generally the theme of so many marvelous stories. That a dragon is large enough to crush an elephant with a twist of its tail, that the Ethiopians eat the flesh of dragons to cool themselves, that dragons are afraid of thunder and therefore enchanters imitate it with drums in order to capture dragons and ride on them through space,[1848]—all such assertions Albert treats as rumors rather than tested facts. He also suggests that meteors or flaming vapors have been mistaken for dragons flying through the air and breathing forth fire. We have already, however, heard his tale of a serpent with a human face.
Albert still believes, moreover, that the mere glance and hiss of the basilisk are fatal. But while the reptile’s glance will kill as far as its vision extends, its hiss is not fatal as far as it can be heard but only as far as it is propagated by the basilisk’s breath.[1849] Albert rejects as neither true nor reasonable Pliny’s assertion that if a man sees a basilisk first, his glance is fatal to it. “Nor do Avicenna and Semerion, philosophers who tell what they have experienced, mention this.” But Albert repeats Pliny’s story of the horseman who was killed by touching with the end of his long lance a corpse slain by a basilisk. He rejects, however, as false and impossible the notion that the basilisk is generated from a cock’s egg, and the books of wise philosophers do not support the assertion that there is a flying variety of basilisk. But scattering the ashes of a basilisk expels spiders and other venomous creatures, and hence in antiquity its ashes were scattered in temples. Hermes says that silver rubbed with its ash takes on the splendor and weight and solidity of gold; Hermes also teaches that the basilisk is generated in glass, but Albert interprets this as an allusion to some alchemical elixir by which metals are transmuted.
Very amusing are the detailed recipes for every ailment of the birds in the chapters on the infirmities of falcons. [1850] These appear to be culled chiefly from the works on falconry of the Emperor Frederick and of King William, one of the Norman line which preceded him in the kingdom of Sicily. To make the birds fierce one is advised to feed them flesh soaked in urine. If a falcon develops a cataract, one should inject into its eye a mixture of pulverized fennel seed and the milk of a woman bearing a male child. Several prayers and incantations are recommended for use when taking up the falcon in the morning, when releasing it in fowling, and in order to preserve it from injury from eagles. In the last case the words to be repeated are, “Leo conquers of the tribe of Judah, root of David, Alleluia.” Albert adds, however, “But these last items,” meaning probably the incantations, “are not so reasonable as the first,” meaning probably the more purely medicinal directions. Equally diverting is a cure of a mad dog borrowed by Albert from a king of Valencia. For nine days the hound should be so immersed in hot water that his hind legs barely touch the ground while his fore legs are held erect. After that his head should be shaved and his hair well plucked out so that the skin is wounded. Then he should be anointed with beet juice and ducked often and soaked in the same juice. “And if he eats anything, give him some pith of the elder tree, for it will do him good. And if this treatment fails to benefit him within the space of seven days, kill him, for he is incurable.”[1851]
Albert’s treatise on animals not only ascribes marvelous properties and medicinal virtues to various portions of their carcasses, but also continues to some extent the tradition of crediting them with semi-human intelligence and medical knowledge. Albert discredits, however, the report of the adultery of the lioness with the leopard and her craftiness in concealing it, and he also rejects as contrary to the wise provision of nature the statement that the lion suffers continually from quartan fever.[1852] But he believes that a sick lion cures itself by eating an ape or drinking the blood of a dog. Even the tortoise (tortuca?), although it seems to Albert a sort of reptile and lacking in “noble virtues of the soul,” yet from mere natural sagacity eats wild origanum after it has eaten the viper in order to overcome the chill of the venom by the heat of the herb.[1853] And someone in Aristotle’s time learned by experience that it will not eat a viper except in a place where this herb is available, and that if the herb is removed while it is eating the viper it will die from want of it. Avicenna tells a similar experience of an old man who was an experienced hunter and deserving credence. He saw a bird of slow movement and weak flight fighting with a viper. As often as it was wounded, it would retreat, eat some of a certain herb, and then return renewed to the fight. The observer covertly removed the herb and when the bird returned again and failed to find it, it raised a great outcry and died. From the old hunter’s description of the plant’s shape and color Avicenna judged it to be wild lettuce (lectuca agrestis).
Thus the remedies employed by animals bring us to the virtues of herbs. The “divine effects” of certain plants, as we have seen, Albert regards as lying within the province of magic rather than that of his treatise on plants, but he mentions a few, such as that planting a certain herb on the roof protects the house from lightning,[1854] and that carrying another stirs up quarrels and hatreds,[1855] while a woman who wears a third about her neck will not become pregnant.[1856] But he believes that there is strong virtue in herbs in general. Their elemental qualities are unusually acute and closely akin to the excellencies of the pure elements. They grow close to the ground and “recede less from the first fertilizing humor in the earth.”[1857] In them matter predominates more and the form of the vegetable soul is less developed than in other kinds of vegetation. Consequently they are more efficacious in altering other bodies and are used by physicians more than any other class of remedies.
Most, indeed, of the virtues of herbs mentioned by Albert are medicinal. Sometimes the method of applying them is injudicious, as when a root of parsley is hung from the neck to cure toothache, or artemisia is bound to the legs to prevent wayfarers from feeling weariness.[1858] More often, however, our criticism is that the same disease is represented as curable by too many different plants, or that a single herb is made a cure for a long list of very miscellaneous and unrelated ills, not content with which Albert often concludes, “And it has many other effects.” Selecting an example at random, we may note what he says of the nasturtium.[1859] “It possesses acidity, is hot and dry, acts as a gentle purgative and laxative, and dries up the putridity of an empty belly. Used as a potion and liniment, it keeps the hair from falling out. Combined with salt and water, it helps abscesses and carbuncles, and mixed with honey, it eradicates Persian Fire and is good for all softening of the muscles. It purifies the lungs and relieves asthma by its sharp, cutting qualities. It warms the stomach and liver and cures enlarged spleen, but its disturbing quality is bad for the stomach. Auget coitum et multiplicat menstrua et eiicit foetum, sed tamen si non teratur et confringatur, retinet ipsum. It is good for venomous bites, and if carefully prepared, works many other effects.”
According to Albert the properties of plants are produced by the combination of five virtues: that of the element which preponderates in the composition of the plant, the cooperating virtue of the other elements which are mixed with it, the virtue of the proportion in which they are mixed, the influence of the stars, and the virtue of the vegetable soul. “The virtue of the place (where the plant grows) and the virtue of the surrounding air are also effective, but they do not enter into the plant’s nature so essentially as the aforesaid five virtues.”[1860] “Its specific form,” upon which its occult virtues largely depend, is given to the plant by the motion of the heavens, especially by the movement of the planets through the circle of the zodiac,[1861] and their position in relation to the fixed stars. Plants receive this influence at the time of their formation, when vapors, potentially seminal and formative, ascend from the depths of earth and meet the dewy air as it descends.
It is unnecessary to repeat the marvelous powers attributed to particular gems and stones by Albert in his treatise on minerals, since they are either copied from or similar to those of Marbod, Costa ben Luca, and Constantinus Africanus. What, however, he has to say on the general subject of their occult virtue is worth noting. He states that many doubt if stones really have such powers as to cure ulcers, counteract poisons, conciliate human hearts, and win victories. Such sceptics contend that a compound substance like a gem can exert only such powers as one can account for from the elements which enter into its composition and the composition itself. Albert grants that the wonders worked by means of stones seem “more prodigious and marvelous” than those produced by simple substances, that the physical constitution of stones does not seem to justify the existence of such powers in them, and that “the cause of the virtue of stones is indeed occult.” But he maintains that such occult virtues are well established by experience, “since we see the magnet attract iron and the adamant restrict that virtue in the magnet.”[1862] Albert has seen with his own eyes a sapphire which removed ulcers.
Albert finds that students of nature (physiologi)—it will be noted that the word cannot possibly refer here to the authors of such works as the Physiologus—have assigned very diverse causes for this marvelous virtue of stones. He rejects as “most absurd” the suggestion of certain Pythagoreans that it is due to the action of souls or of a world-soul in stones. Alexander Aphrodisiensis argues from the operations of alchemy that some chemical change makes the compound stone far more potent than any or all of its constituents. Plato thinks that all inferior objects are imbued with superior ideas; Hermes and Avicenna suggest that celestial virtue is responsible. Albert himself concludes that the occult virtue of stones resides in their specific forms, in which, as in the case of herbs, the influence of the stars plays the chief part. Albert’s discussion of the virtue of gems is repeated in a Summa philosophiae ascribed to Robert Grosseteste, but in part at least written after his death. The author regards “Albert of Cologne” as having “spoken more certainly than others in this matter.”[1863]
Albert’s discussion of the engraving of images and seals on stones in his treatise on minerals has already been mentioned in connection with his attitude toward magic and will come up again in connection with his attitude towards astrology. Besides the treatise on minerals there seems to be another work on stones ascribed to Albert which is spurious. It deals with the colors and virtues of stones, and, like Thetel and the fourteenth book of Thomas of Cantimpré, with their sculpture and consecration.[1864]
In his third book concerning minerals Albert judiciously discusses alchemy, citing Avicenna and Hermes especially. He says that of all the arts alchemy most closely imitates nature.[1865] Albert regards the various metals as distinct species, and hardly accepts the assertions of Hermes, Gilgil, Empedocles, and other alchemists that in each metal there are several species and natures, one manifest and another occult,[1866] one external and another internal, one superficial and another deep. Albert then considers the remark of Avicenna, incorrectly ascribed by some to Aristotle, that the alchemists cannot alter species but can make them appear alike, as when they color copper so that it seems to be gold.[1867] Avicenna has also remarked in his Alchemy, however, that species can perhaps be reduced to first matter and then by the aid of the art formed into the species of the desired metal. Albert thinks that perhaps, as physicians by their medicines purge away corrupt matter and afterwards restore health, so skilled alchemists may purify a great mass of quicksilver and sulphur, which according to Avicenna are the material constituents of all metals, and then combine these in due ratio of elemental and celestial virtues for the composition of the metal which they wish to obtain.[1868] But those who merely color the metal white or yellow, while the species of the baser metal remains in the material, are beyond doubt deceivers and do not make true gold or true silver. Unfortunately all alchemists proceed in this fashion to a greater or less extent, and Albert has subjected gold made by them to fire and has found that it is finally consumed, after it has stood the test of fire perhaps six or seven times.
Albert thus suggests that the transmutation of metals by means of human art is possible, although he does not regard the alchemists as having yet employed the right method. But it is hard to see how Peter of Prussia got the notion that Albert had condemned the art of alchemy in the De mineralibus and could not be the author of a treatise on the subject.[1869] In other passages Albert speaks of alchemy without disapproval and apparently with respect. He cites “alchemical experiments” concerning the evaporation of water when heated.[1870] He repeats the argument of Alexander of Aphrodisias that the occult virtues of gems are due to the mixture of the elements in them, as is proved by the operations of alchemy, in which simple substances effect little, but when mixed together produce truly marvelous effects.[1871] And as one instance of the influence exerted by the moon he states that skilled alchemists work during the waxing of the moon because then they produce purer metals and purer stones, especially when they are really expert and do not hurry their operations but await the opportune time when the process will be aided by celestial virtue.[1872] On the whole, however, as these passages show, Albert’s mentions of alchemy are mainly allusive. He does not treat of it fully in his Aristotelian treatises apparently because, as we saw earlier, he regarded it as a separate subject from physics or physical science, bordering more on the field of natural magic. The question therefore next arises whether he ever wrote a work or works dealing especially with alchemy, just as the question will arise whether he ever wrote any works in the field of natural magic.
Berthelot gives the impression in his La Chimie au Moyen Age[1873] that there was but one alchemistic treatise current under the name of Albertus Magnus. This he describes as a serious and methodical work but written a little after Albert’s time. But the manuscripts seem to contain several, or rather, nearly a dozen, different works of alchemy ascribed to Albert.[1874] In the University library at Bologna alone there appear to be six different alchemistic treatises ascribed to Albert, and three of them in one manuscript. [1875] In one manuscript of the British Museum is a rather lengthy “Practica of Brother Albert in alchemy which is called by the same the Secret of Secrets,” in seven books. The text, however, cites Albert’s work on minerals, stating that the Latins in general have discovered very little for themselves experimentally in alchemy but have been dependent upon translations from other languages, but that “Albert, once of Ratisbon, the crown of the Latins,” studied it and discovered some secrets by experimentation, as he bears witness in his “De mineralibus.”[1876] Presently Albert is again cited in a list of old masters who labored at this art, Alexander the Great, Dioscorides, and others.[1877] In another manuscript at the British Museum is a much briefer Of the hidden things of nature ascribed to Albertus Magnus.[1878] What seems to be still another brief tract on alchemy ascribed to Albert occurs in a manuscript at Cambridge. It concludes with the statement, “And I Albert say that I have tested these two operations and that there is no other perfect work by me except these two works, and they are true. Euclid, too, and many philosophers agree with me and assert that all the value of this art consists in Mercury and the Moon and in Mercury and the Sun, and you should know that all others are vain and illusory. Thanks to God.”[1879]
Of these various treatises in alchemy ascribed to Albert we shall now consider in more detail the one which has been included in editions of his works,[1880] and which is perhaps the most likely of any of them to be genuine. It is ascribed to Albert in a manuscript list of the writings of Dominicans drawn up before 1350, and also by Pignon.[1881] It is also an unusually intelligible treatise for a work of alchemy and so the better lends itself to description and summary. After opening in devout tone with praise of God and invocation of His aid, the author proceeds to tell in somewhat Albertine style how he has traversed many regions, provinces, cities, and castles with great labor for the sake of the science which is called alchemy, and has diligently inspected the books on the subject by men of erudition and learning, but has found nothing true in them. He has also encountered “many very rich men, scholars, abbots, praepositi, canons, physicians, and illiterate persons,” who have expended much money and toil without result. He did not despair, however, but went to infinite expense and labor, keeping his eyes open and constantly moving from place to place, until at last he found what he sought “not by any science of mine but by the grace of the Holy Spirit.” He therefore, the least of philosophers, intends to write to his friends and associates concerning this art, true, easy, and infallible, yet so that seeing they shall not see and hearing they shall not understand. And he adjures them to keep it secret and not to show his book to the foolish.
After this preface, the first of the fifty-seven chapters, for the most part brief, into which the treatise is divided, lists various “errors” which have made the previous efforts of alchemists a failure. The author also strikes an experimental key-note for his work, stating that after seeing so many fail he has decided to write true and approved works and the best which all the philosophers have to offer, works furthermore in which he has labored and which he has tested by experience, and he will write nothing but what he has seen with his own eyes.[1882] After suggesting a derivation for the word “alchemy”[1883] and a theory for the origin of metals and “proof that alchemy is a true art,”[1884] the author lays down eight precepts for alchemists to follow. The alchemist should work silently and secretly or he may be arrested as a counterfeiter. He should have a laboratory, “a special house away from the sight of men in which there are two or three rooms in which experiments may be conducted.”[1885] He must observe time and seasons; the process of sublimation, for instance, cannot be successfully performed in winter. He must be a sedulous, persevering, untiring, and constant worker. In his operations he must observe due order: first contributio; then sublimatio; third, fixio; fourth, calcinatio; fifth, solutio; sixth, coagulatio; processes which are further explained in chapters 30 to 35. All the vessels which he uses should be made of glass. He should fight shy of princes and potentates, and finally, should have plenty of money. Chapters four to eight then deal with the subject of furnaces, and chapter nine tells how to glaze clay vessels.
In the tenth chapter, besides discussing what are the four “spirits” of metals which dye or color, the author states his opinion as to the extent to which metals can be transmuted. He believes that metals can be produced by alchemy which are the equal of natural metals in almost all their qualities and effects, except that the iron of alchemy is not attracted by the stone adamant, and that the gold of alchemy does not stimulate the human heart or cure leprosy, while a wound inflicted by it swells up as one made by natural gold would not do. “But in every other operation, hammering, testing, and color, it will endure forever.” In the two following chapters the author discusses what the Elixir is and the kinds of medicines.
A number of chapters are next devoted to description of various minerals, chemicals, dyes, and coloring matter, such as mercury, sulphur, orpiment, arsenic, salts of ammonia, common salt, various other salts, azure, minium, ceruse, and so on. We are then instructed in various processes such as whitening quicksilver or sulphur or orpiment or arsenic, the making of powders, solutions, and distillations, leading up finally in the last two chapters to two brief recipes for the making of the precious metals. The general plan of this treatise is one to which many others conform; it is noteworthy further for the absence of mysticism and magic procedure.
We have already noted in Albert’s works some instances of marvels worked by herbs bound to the body or suspended from the neck. In his treatise on plants he cited books concerning physical ligatures[1886] for the divine effects of plants with which magic is especially concerned. But in his treatise on minerals, after stating that the marvels worked by images engraved on gems cannot be explained by the laws of physical science but require a knowledge of “astronomy” and magic and necromancy,[1887] he adds that ligatures and suspensions of stones seem to operate naturally and belong more to physical science.[1888] He cites, however, Socrates, probably through the medium of Costa ben Luca, to the effect that ligatures and suspensions are one of four kinds of incantations, and that they affect the mind, depressing or elating it and so affecting the health of the body. This half-sceptical attitude seems to influence Albert little, for he states that for the present he intends to treat only of ligatures and suspensions of stones, of which he proceeds to list examples for a page and a half drawn largely from Costa ben Luca’s treatise. In his work on animals Albert again quotes Costa ben Luca to the effect that dogs will not bite the wearer of a dog’s heart.[1889] Others say that they will not bark at one who holds in his hand the tooth of a black dog, “and so robbers carry such a tooth with them at night.” Albert further finds in the book of sixty animals—probably the work ascribed to Rasis—that dog’s teeth should be suspended from the neck of a patient suffering from jaundice.
Albert does not expressly discuss the power of words or incantations. It is rarely that he repeats any incantations, and it will be remembered that those which he quoted from books on falcons were accompanied with a word of caution. His belief in the power of characters or images engraved on gems may be best discussed in connection with his attitude towards astrology.
The power of fascination possessed by one human being over another is touched upon by Albert in three different treatises.[1890] We have already heard him identify it with magic. He cites certain Pythagoreans as affirming that the soul of a man or other animal can act upon another, fascinating it and impeding its working. He quotes Hermes as telling Esclepius that man is so endowed with divine intellect and raised above the world, that its matter follows his thought, and so the sage can work transformations and miracles in nature or fascinate another person through sight or some other sense. Avicenna and Algazel “say that souls can in so far conform to the celestial intelligence that it will alter material bodies at their pleasure, and then such a man will work wonders.” It is not clear, however, to what extent Albert agrees with the authorities he has cited; he remarks that the power of the soul in fascination can scarcely be proved by philosophy, but he perhaps simply means that it can be proved by magic.
In a passage of his treatise on animals[1891] Albert describes physiognomy as a science which divines a man’s character from the physical form of the various parts of his body. He explains, however, that the configuration of one’s physical features does not absolutely force one to a corresponding course of action. Thus he upholds human free will against a mechanistic view of man, or rather he shows that the physiognomists themselves do. He cites Aristotle, to whom we have seen that a treatise on physiognomy was ascribed, for the following story: The disciples of Hippocrates made a perfect image of him and submitted it to an excellent physiognomist, who declared it the likeness of a man given to luxury, deceit, and lusts of the body. The disciples were angered at this slur upon the character of their master, who they knew lived a sober and upright life; but Hippocrates himself told them that the physiognomist had judged aright as to his natural traits, and that it was only by love of philosophy and integrity and a life of study and effort that he had triumphed over nature. A treatise on chiromancy is ascribed to Albert in more than one manuscript.[1892]