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.
Physiognomy.
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]
Aristotle on divination from dreams.
In the third book of his De somno et vigilia[1893] Albert complains that Aristotle’s treatment of divination from dreams is unsatisfactory; being “brief, deficient in proof, naïve, unphilosophical, imperfect,” and having “many doubtful points because it leaves the causes of such dreams uncertain.” Aristotle’s attitude was in fact a vacillating one, since he found it “not easy either to despise or to believe” in that kind of divination. Yet Roger Bacon tells us that one reason why the study of the books of Aristotle on natural philosophy was forbidden at Paris before 1237 was this third book of his De somno et vigilia dealing with divination from dreams.[1894] But perhaps this was because of commentaries of Averroes which accompanied it or errors in translation of which Bacon speaks.
Albert on divination from dreams.
Little as Aristotle said, he came nearer the truth in Albert’s opinion than any other extant philosophers, among whom there is great diversity of view. However, that dreams are prophetic “is no idle report but the testimony of experience,”[1895] and Albert thinks that there is scarcely anyone who has not been warned in his dreams of many future events. “Socrates put great faith in divination from dreams.”[1896] Interpretation of dreams is necessary, for dreams cannot be exact images of future events, since these are as yet non-existent.[1897] Predictions from dreams, even if correctly made, do not invariably come true, just as medical prognostications and the predictions of augurs—of whom we are surprised to hear Albert speak approvingly—sometimes fail owing to the arising of some conflicting cause.[1898] The dreamer must be free from care and passion. Albert agrees with Aristotle that dreams requiring interpretation do not come from God but have a natural cause; while the future cannot be foretold from dreams which have an accidental cause.[1899] More specifically he finds the cause of dreams not, like Socrates and Plato, in demons and corporeal and incorporeal gods,[1900] nor, like Democritus, in atoms streaming from the stars through the pores of the dreamer into his inmost soul, but in the motion of the stars acting upon the body of man, who is in a sense a microcosm or image of the universe (imago mundi).[1901] The interpreter of dreams must be quick to see associations and similarities from the realm of nature and of art, he must understand astronomy and astrology, and the state of health and mind of the dreamer.[1902] Albert again discusses divination from dreams in much the same way in the second part of his Summa de creaturis and in his De apprehensione.[1903]
Augury.
In the De somno et vigilia he mentions one further variety of vision “when the celestial influence is so strong that it affects even while awake one whose attention is not occupied by the distractions of sense.” Such visions move the bodies of animals even when they are awake, “and then their movements have some future signification, which augurs endeavor to note and interpret. On so much ground of reason is divination by augury based.”[1904]