chapter two

he falls into the first of his interminable digressions, taking up what were called “the objections of Heracleitus” to any science of physics. Another digressive chapter considers the proper subject of physical science, to wit, _corpus mobile_, and another considers its divisions. After a while he takes up the opinions of the ancients upon the beginnings (_principia_) of things, and then reasons out the true opinion in the matter. Liber II. of his _Physica_ is devoted to _Natura_, considered in many ways, but chiefly as the _principium intrinsecum omnium eorum quae naturalia sunt_. It is the principle of motion in the mobile substance. Next he passes to a discussion of causes; and in the succeeding books he considers movement, place, time, and eternity. Albert’s paraphrase is replete with logical forms of thinking; it seems like formal logic applied in physical science. The world about us still furnishes, or _is_, data for our thoughts; and we try to conceive it consistently, so as to satisfy our thinking; so did Aristotle and Albertus. But they avowedly worked out their conceptions of the external world according to the laws determining the consistency of their own mental processes; and deemed this a proper way of approach to natural science. Yet the work of Aristotle represents a real consideration of the universe, and a tremendous mass of natural knowledge. The achievement of Albertus in rendering it available to the scholar-world of the thirteenth century was an extension of knowledge which seems the more prodigious as we note its enormous range. This continues to impress us as we turn over Albert’s next treatises, paraphrasing those of Aristotle, as their names indicate: _De coelo et mundo_; _De generatione et corruptione_; _Libri IV. meteorum_; _De mineralibus_, which ends Tome II. and the physical treatises proper.

Tome III. introduces us to another region, opening with Albert’s exhaustive paraphrase, _De anima_. It is placed here because the _scientia de anima_ is a part of _naturalis scientia_, and comes after minerals and other topics of physics, but precedes the science of animate bodies--_corporum animatorum_; for the last cannot be known except through knowing their _animae_. In this, as well as in other works of Albert, psychological material is gathered from many sources. One may hardly speak of the psychology of Albertus Magnus, since his matter has no organic unity. It is largely Aristotelian, with the thoughts of Arab commentators taken into it, as in Albert’s Aristotelian paraphrases generally. But it is also Augustinian, and Platonic and Neo-Platonic. Albert is capable of defending opposite views in the same treatise; and in spite of best intentions, he does not succeed in harmonizing what he draws from Aristotle, with what he takes from Augustine. Hence his works nowhere present a system of psychology which might be called Albert’s, either through creation or consistent selection. But at least he has gathered, and bestowed somewhere, all the accessible material.[569]

Tome III. of Albert’s _Opera_ contains also his Aristotelian paraphrase, _Metaphysicorum libri XIII._ In this _vera sapientia philosophiae_, he follows Aristotle closely, save where orthodoxy compels deviation.[570] Tome IV. contains his paraphrasing expositions, _Ethica_ and _In octo libros politicorum Aristotelis commentarii_. Tome V. contains paraphrases of Aristotle’s minor natural treatises,--_parva naturalia_; to wit, the _Liber de sensu et sensato_, treating problems of sense-perception; next the _Liber de memoria et reminiscentia_, in which the two are thus distinguished: “Memoria motus continuus est in rem, et uniformis. Reminiscibilitas autem est motus quasi interceptus et abscissus per oblivionem.” Treatises follow: _De somno et vigilia_; _De motibus animalium_; _De aetate, sive de juventute et senectute_; _De spiritu et respiratione_; _De morte et vita_; _De nutrimento et nutribile_; _De natura et origine animae_; _De unitate intellectus contra Averroem_ (a controversial tract); _De intellectu et intelligibile_ (an important psychological writing); _De natura locorum_; _De causis proprietatum elementorum_; _De passionibus aeris, sive de vaporum impressionibus_; and next and last, saving some minor tracts, Albert’s chief botanical work, _De vegetabilibus_.

Aristotle’s _Botany_ was lost, and Albert’s work was based on the _De plantis_ of Nicolas of Damascus, a short compend vulgarly ascribed to Aristotle, but really made in the first century, and passing through numerous translations from one language to another, before Albert accepted it as the composition of the Stagirite. It consisted of two short books; Albert’s work contained seven long ones, and made the most important work on botany since the times of Aristotle and his pupil Theophrastus. In opening, Albert says that generalities applicable to all animate things have been already presented, and now it is time to consider more especially and in turn, _vegetabilia_, _sensibilia_, _rationabilia_. In the first eight chapters of his first book, Albert follows his supposed Aristotelian source, and then remarks that the translation of the Philosopher’s treatise is so ignorantly made that he will himself take up in order the six problems thus far incompetently discussed. So he considers whether plants have souls; whether plant-souls feel and desire; whether plants sleep; as to sex in plants; whether without sex they can propagate their species; and as to their hidden life.

In the second book, having again bewailed the insufficiency of his source, Albert takes up the classification of plants, and proceeds with a description of their various parts, then passes on to the shape of leaves, the generation and nature of flowers, their colour, odour, and shape. Liber III., still as an independent _digressio_, discusses seeds and fruit. In Liber IV. Albert returns to his unhappy source, and his matter declines in interest; but again, in Liber V., he frees himself in a _digressio_ on the properties and effects of plants, gathered from many sources, some of which are foolish enough. His sixth book is a description of trees and other plants in alphabetical order. The last and seventh is devoted to agriculture.[571]

In the _De vegetabilibus_, Albert, as an expounder of natural knowledge, is at his best. A less independent and intelligent production is his enormous treatise _De animalibus libri XXVI._, which fills the whole of Tome IV. of Albert’s _Opera_. A certain Thomas of Cantimpré, an admiring pupil of Albert, may have anticipated the above-named work of his teacher by his own compilation, _De naturis rerum_, which appears to have been composed shortly before the middle of the thirteenth century. Its descriptions of animals, although borrowed and uncritical, were at least intended to describe them actually, and were not merely fashioned for the moral’s sake, after the manner of the _Physiologus_,[572] and many a compilation of the early Middle Ages. Yet the work contains moralities enough, and plenty of the fabulous. But Thomas diligently gathered information as he might, and from Aristotle more than any other. Thus, in his lesser way, he, as well as Albert, represents the tendency of the period to interest itself in the realities, as well as in the symbolisms, of the natural world.

Albert’s work is not such an inorganic compilation as Thomas’s. He has paraphrased the ten books of Aristotle’s natural histories, his four books on the parts of animals, and his five books on their generation. To these nineteen, he has added seven books on the nature of animal bodies and on their grades of perfection; and then on quadrupeds, birds, aquatic animals, snakes, and small bloodless creatures. Besides Aristotle, he draws on Avicenna, Galen, Ambrose (!), and others, including Thomas of Cantimpré. Thus, his work is made up mainly of the ancient written material. Moreover, Albert is kept from a natural view of his subject through the need he feels to measure animals by the standards of human capacity, and learn to know them through knowing man. His _digressiones_ usually discuss abstract problems, as, for instance, whether beyond the four elements, any fifth principle enters the composition of animal bodies. As for his anatomy, he describes the muscles, and calls the veins nerves, having no real knowledge of the latter. He corrects few ancient errors, either anatomical or physiological; and his own observations, occasionally referred to in his work, scarcely win our respect. Nor does he exclude fabulous stories, or the current superstitions as to the medicinal or magical effect of parts of certain animals. On the whole, Albert’s merit in the province of Zoology lies in his introduction of the Aristotelian data and conceptions to the mediaeval Latin West.[573]

After Tome IV. of Albert’s _Opera_, follow many portly tomes, the contents of which need not detain us. There are enormous commentaries on the Psalms and Prophets, and the Gospels (Tomes VII.-XI.); then a tome of sermons, then a tome of commentaries on the Hierarchies of Pseudo-Dionysius; and three tomes of commentaries on the Lombard’s _Sentences_,--commentaries, that is to say, upon works which stood close to Scripture in authority. With these we reach the end of Albert’s labours in paraphrase and commentary, and pass to his more constructive work. Of course, the first and chief is his _Summa theologiae_, contained in Tomes XVII. and XVIII. of the _Opera_. With Albert, theology is a science, a branch of systematic knowledge, the highest indeed, and yet one among others. This science, says he in the Prologue to his _Summa_,

“... is of all sciences the most entitled to credence--_certissimae credulitatis et fidei_. Other sciences, concerning creatures, possess _rationes immobiles_, yet those _rationes_ are _mobiles_ because they are in created things. But this science founded in _rationibus aeternis_ is immutable both _secundum esse_ and _secundum rationem_. And since it is not constituted of the sensible and imaginable, which are not quite cleared of the hangings of matter, plainly it, alone or supremely, is science: for the divine intellect is altogether intellectual, being the light and cause of everything intelligible; and from it to us is the divine science.”

Albert’s dialectic is turgid enough, and lacks the lucidity of his pupil. Yet his reasoning may be weighty and even convincing. Intellect, Reason and its realm of that which is known through Reason, is higher than sense perceptions and imaginations springing from them: it affords the surest knowledge; the science that treats of pure reason, which is in God, is the surest and noblest of sciences. Albert clearly defines the province and nature of theology.

“It is _scientia secundum pietatem_; it is not concerned with the knowable (_scibile_) simply as such, nor with the knowable universally; but only as it inclines us to Piety. Piety, as Augustine says, is the worship of God, perfected by faith, hope, charity, prayer, and sacrifices. Thus theology is the science of what pertains to salvation; for piety conduces to salvation.”[574]

The _Summa theologiae_ treats of the encyclopaedic matter of the sacred science, in the order and arrangement with which we are familiar.[575] It is followed (Tome XIX.) by Albert’s _Summa de creaturis_, a presentation of God’s creation, omitting the special topics set forth in the _De vegetabilibus_ and _De animalibus_. It treats of creation, of matter, of time and eternity, of the heavens and celestial bodies, of angels, their qualities and functions, and the hierarchies of them; of the state of the wicked angels, of the works of the six days, briefly; and then of man, soul and body, very fully; of man’s habitation and the order and perfection of the universe. Thus the _Summa de creaturis_ treats of the world and man as God’s creation; but it is not directly concerned with man’s salvation, which is the distinguishing purpose of a _Summa theologiae_, however encyclopaedic such a work may be.

Two tomes remain of Albert’s opera, containing much that is very different from anything already considered. Tome XX. is devoted to the Virgin Mary, and is chiefly made up of two prodigious tracts: _De laudibus beatae Mariae Virginis libri XII._, and the _Mariale, sive quaestiones super evangelium, Missus est angelus Gabriel_. These works--it is disputed whether Albert was their author--are a glorification, indeed a deification, of Mary. They are prodigious; they are astounding. The worship of Mary is gathered up in them, of Mary the chief and best beloved religious creation of the Middle Ages; only not a creation, strictly speaking, for the Divine Virgin, equipped with attribute and quality, sprang from the fecund matrix of the early Church. The works before us represent a simpler piety than Albert’s _Summa theologiae_. They contain satisfying, consoling statements, not woven of dialectic. And the end is all that the Mary-loving soul could wish. “Christ protects the servants of His genetrix:--and so does Mary, as may be read in her miracles, protect us from our bodily enemies, and from the seducers of souls.”[576] The praises of Mary will seem marvellous indeed to anyone turning over the _tituli_ of books and chapters. There is here a whole mythology, and a universal symbolism. Symbolically, Mary is everything imaginable; she has every virtue and a mass of power and privileges. She is the adorable and chief efficient Goddess mediating between the Trinity and the creature man.

Tome XXI., last tome of all, has a variety of writings, some of which may not be Albert’s. Among them is a work of sweet and simple piety, a work of turning to God as a little child; and one would be loath to take it away from this man of learning. _De adhaerendo Deo_ is its title, which tells the story. Albert wished at last to write something presenting man’s ultimate perfection, so far as that might be realized in this life. So he writes this little tract of chamber-piety, as to how one should cling to Christ alone. Yet he cannot disencumber himself of his lifelong methods of composition. He might conceive and desire; but it was not for him to write a tract to move the heart. The best he can say is that the end of all our study and discipline is _intendere et quiescere in Domino Deo intra te per purissimum intellectum, et devotissimum affectum sine phantasmatibus et implicationibus_. The great scholar would come home at last, like a little child, if he only could.

##