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

by Lynn Thorndike

Mathematical problems.

The headings, Arithmetic, Music, and Geometry, are more exactly appropriate to their contents than Dialectic was. One problem in arithmetic is to tell how many knights, esquires, and pages will be required to divide twenty loaves of bread, if each knight receives two loaves, if two pages share a loaf, and if four esquires share a loaf. Under geometry are calculated surfaces, the cubic contents of various receptacles, and the altitudes of inaccessible objects.

Astronomy: experiments with air: the magnet.

Under “Astronomy” the rule of superiors over inferiors is affirmed and the various attributes, properties, and effects of the planets are listed. Then come “experiments with air” and many figures of vessels partly filled with water or other liquids. Siphoning is explained under the heading, “Of the ascent of water on account of the consumption of the air lest a vacuum be left.” By employing the same principle that Adelard of Bath observed in the magic water-jar of the enchantress, any one of four different liquids that the spectators choose can be poured from a single faucet. Inside the jar are four compartments each with its own airhole above and outlet below, and beneath all four a common chamber into which they open and from which the common faucet pours. The four air-holes are covered with the fingers, and as one of these is raised, the liquid will flow from the corresponding compartment. This is illustrated by a diagram of the contrivance. The magnet is discussed under “Astronomy” “because it bears in itself a likeness of the sky.” This discussion of the magnet and some of the accompanying figures resemble the treatise of Peter Peregrinus on the magnet, which was written in the thirteenth century.[2507] Here the work ends in two of the three manuscripts which I have used,[2508] but in the third further experiments are added.[2509] Some of these have occurred before in the Secretum philosophorum itself, or in other experimental treatises of which we have already spoken. Others are to make fireworks,[2510] to soften steel, to drive away crows, and to tell whether a person is a leper.

Le Secret aux philosophes.

Not to be confused with the Latin Secretum philosophorum, which we have just described and which seems to be of English origin, is a work in the French vernacular written at the end of the thirteenth century and entitled Le Secret aux philosophes.[2511] It is not a collection of experiments but rather an encyclopedic discussion of theological and metaphysical as well as natural problems in the form of a dialogue, presumably imaginary, although sometimes represented as a translation, between Placides, the promising son of a petty king, and his master Timeo, who chose him as his pupil in preference to the stupid son of a great emperor. Through this medium is retailed for less learned perusal much of the knowledge and superstition, especially astrological, to be found in the Latin and Arabic learning of the time. Perhaps the resemblance is greater to the Secret of Secrets of the Pseudo-Aristotle than to any other treatise that we have considered. The author, very weak and meager on theological and metaphysical matters, shows a much greater interest in natural science and something of the spirit of experimental research. Yet in a prologue “the compiler” gives his name as Jehan de Bonnet, priest, doctor of theology, and native of Paris. Ernest Renan was impressed by the curiosity shown concerning problems of natural science, by the “search after realities” and by the experimental spirit of the book. The solutions, as in the Natural Questions of Adelard of Bath, often make one smile, but “this naïve composition ... is superior to many scholastic treatises in Latin which deal purely with abstractions and where modern thought has not its true antecedents.” In this treatise, on the other hand, “the science of reality has taken the upper hand” and “the idea of research is born.”[2512] But Renan was mistaken in thinking such scientific curiosity a new thing as late as the close of the thirteenth century, and perhaps on that account overestimated its importance in this case.

Natural Experiments of Solomon.

Returning to books of experiments, we may note a treatise whose contents are very similar to the Eighty-eight Natural Experiments of Rasis, the Book of Fires of Marcus Grecus, and the Secretum philosophorum, namely, Some experiments which King Solomon composed because of his love for, and the imploring of, a most excellent queen, and they are experiments of nature.[2513] Instead of the experiment with the snake in the pot we now have rats in a cage, whose squealing when a fire is heated is supposed to attract other rats. Again we are told how to write invisible letters, how to make a candle burn in water,[2514] how to light a candle from the mouth of an image painted upon the wall. This is done by painting the mouth with sulphur and turpentine and applying the wick of the candle to it just after the candle has been blown out and before it has quite ceased to glow. Quicklime as well as sulphur and turpentine are used in an image that will illuminate and take fire when water is poured over it. Quicksilver is placed with saltpeter and sulphur inside a ring in order that it may hop about when put near a fire.

Experiments without title or author.

Such experiments sometimes occur without any title as well as without name of author, as in a manuscript where there are a dozen leaves filled with them between the treatise on plantations and the experiments or secrets ascribed to Albert.[2515] Again we encounter the jumping ring, the cooked meat turned raw, men made to appear headless, and artificial thunder which seems produced by use of gunpowder. There is much discussion of colors and alchemy and we are told how to make sal ammoniac and “the best bitumen.”[2516] But the virtues of herbs and animals are not forgotten and many of the experiments are medical or magical. Instructions are given for making a white crow by tampering with the crow’s egg, and how to make human hair grow again by the application of the ashes of a mole, burned in a new pot, mixed with honey. A cure for diarrhoea is to drink milk in which a glowing iron has been quenched. Suspending the tongue of a goose over a sleeper has the appropriate effect of causing him to reveal all his secrets, while the suspension of the head of a bat prevents his waking. The bearer of the herb aristologia is safe from demons whether awake or asleep. To escape from chains one should employ an incantation which contains allusions to the rescue of the apostle Peter from the sea and from prison.