A History of Magic and Experimental Science, Volume 2 (of 2) / During the First Thirteen Centuries of Our Era

DURING THE FIRST THIRTEEN CENTURIES OF OUR ERA
BY LYNN THORNDIKE
VOLUME II
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW YORK
Copyright 1923 Columbia University Press First published by The Macmillan Company 1923
ISBN 0-231-08795-0 Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7
THE EARLY SCHOLASTICS: PETER ABELARD AND HUGH OF ST. VICTOR
Relation of scholastic theology to our theme—Character of Abelard’s learning—Incorrect statements of his views—The nature of the stars—Prediction of natural and contingent events—The Magi and the star—Demons and forces in nature—Magic and natural science—Hugh of St. Victor—Character of the Didascalicon —Meaning of Physica —The study of history—The two mathematics: astrology, natural and superstitious—The superlunar and sublunar worlds—Discussion of magic—Five sub-divisions of magic— De bestiis et aliis rebus .
Relation of scholastic theology to our theme.
The names of Peter Abelard, 1079-1142, and Hugh or Hugo of St. Victor, 1096-1141, have been coupled as those of the two men who perhaps more than any others were the founders of scholastic theology. Our investigation is not very closely or directly concerned with scholastic theology, which I hope to show did not so exclusively absorb the intellectual energy of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as has sometimes been asserted. Our attention will be mainly devoted as heretofore to the pursuit of natural science during that period and the prominence both of experimental method and of magic in the same. But our investigation deals not only with magic and experimental science, but with their relation to Christian thought. It is therefore with interest that we turn to the works of these two early representatives of scholastic theology, and inquire what cognizance, if any, they take of the subjects in which we are especially interested. As we proceed into the later twelfth and thirteenth centuries in subsequent chapters, we shall also take occasion to note the utterances of other leading men of learning who speak largely from the theological standpoint, like John of Salisbury and Thomas Aquinas. Let us hasten to admit also that the scholastic method of instruction and writing made itself felt in natural science and medicine as well as in theology, as a number of our subsequent chapters will illustrate. In the present chapter we shall furthermore be brought again into contact with the topic of the Physiologus and Latin Bestiaries, owing to the fact that a treatise of this sort has been ascribed, although probably incorrectly, to Hugh of St. Victor.