The author then lays down some general laws of nature such as that every species seeks its kind, fire moving toward fire, and water toward water. Also that an object is gradually changed into likeness to its surroundings. Thus Avicenna says that an object turns to salt when it has stood in salt for a long time; and if wild animals remain long with men, they become domesticated. Philosophers have discovered “the dispositions of natural entities,” such as heat, cold, boldness, wrath, fear, sterility, the ardor of love, or any other virtue. For instance, audacity is a quality innate in all members of the lion species. Knowledge of these innate qualities is of great assistance in marvelous and secret operations. Another great law is that like loves like. Medical men, alchemists, and scientists generally verify this assertion. Furthermore, “every nature, particular or general, has a natural friendship or enmity for some other, and some have this for the entire species and for all time, while others have it for an individual only and for a fixed time.” Proof of this is to be seen in the case of certain animals who hate each other in life and whose parts, even whose hairs, retain this repugnance after death. Thus the lion’s skin injures all other pelts; while sheepskin is consumed by wolfskin, and a drum made of the latter silences one made of the former.
Man’s magic power.
The author then returns to the magic power in man. He believes that it is clear to everyone that man is the end of all nature and should be supreme over it. Man possesses all the marvelous virtues to be found throughout the natural world; even the demons obey him; “and in the very human body all the secret arts are worked and ... every marvel issues from it.” All these powers, however, are not found in one man at the same time, but in different individuals at different times. The details of this relationship of man to the world of nature are revealed not by reason but by experience,—a Galenic and Albertine distinction of which the author of the De mirabilibus mundi is quite fond.
A wonderful world.
Everything in nature is equally full of marvelous virtue. Fires are not more marvelous than waters, the virtues of pepper are no greater than those of jusquiam. One cannot dispute this, whether one attributes marvelous virtues primarily to the action of heat and cold, or to love and enmity between things, or to the influence of the stars, for all things in nature are subject alike to these three forces. Now, “when philosophers realized that everything was wonderful, they began to experiment and to bring forth what there is in things.”
The chief causes of marvels.
The author, for his part, cannot agree with those philosophers and medical men who have tried to explain everything in terms of hot and cold, dry and moist. He declares that they met with many phenomena in the course of their experience which they could not verify upon this basis, so that “they marveled and were sorrowful incessantly, and often denied something although they saw it.” On the other hand, our author does not agree with the astrologers that everything can be explained by the course of the stars. He prefers the view of “Plato and Aristotle and the orthodox (legitimi) and all who pursue the ultimate philosophy” that there are diverse causes or channels of marvelousness (mirabilibus). Often marvels are produced by the impression of the stars, often by heat and cold, often by the virtues of demons and necromancers, often by virtues innate in objects and implanted with their substantial forms, often by the relationship of things to one another. This is why Plato says in libro tegimenti (or, regiminis) that one who is not trained in dialectic, natural science, astrology, and necromancy—“in which are revealed the immaterial substances which dispense and administer all that is in things for good or for evil”—can explain neither what the philosophers have written nor what the senses perceive, and will depart sadly, unable to solve the problems of the marvelous. Our author also warns his readers to distinguish between the effects, often contrary, of substance and accident, and to remember that action is sometimes direct, sometimes indirect.
Marvels proved by experience, not by reason.
Finally, before beginning his list of specific marvels, the author reverts to his point concerning reason and experience, citing the liber tegimenti again to the effect that some things for which we can give no reason are nevertheless manifest to the senses, while others which we perceive by no sense or sensation are manifest to the reason. As usual the power of the magnet is adduced as an example of things proved by experience for which reason cannot account. “So no one should deny what the philosophers have affirmed from experience until he has tested it in the manner of the philosophers who discovered it.” It is also pointed out that many of the ancients told marvelous things which are now verified and generally accepted. “And I will tell you some in order that you may strengthen your mind on them and be prepared to believe what reason cannot confirm.” With this the list of particular marvels opens.
Borrowing from the Liber vaccae of Pseudo-Plato suggested by the authorities cited.