The end of our period—Science not stagnant during it—Nor a mere handmaid of religion—The belief in occult virtue—Dominance of astrology—Definition of magic—Difficulty of reducing magic to one principle—Human fondness for the fallacious—Utility is not magic’s strongest appeal—The spirit of magic is not the scientific spirit—Magic and experimental science—Science is a gradual evolution, not a modern creation—Its medieval stage of development—Does magic survive in modern learning?—Or in other sides of present life?—Importance of the history of experimental science—Prominence of magic in the history of science—How the human mind works—Indestructibility of thought.
The end of our period.
Our survey of some thirteen centuries of thought draws to a close. As has been said in discussing Peter of Abano, the period of the medieval revival of learning, as of other phases of civilization, seems to have spent its force by the close of the first quarter of the fourteenth century. On the other hand, the works which we have studied were reproduced again and again in manuscript form in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and then in printed form in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as has been pointed out in many instances. Some topics, like that of experimental books, we have traced on as late as into the seventeenth century. In short, the conceptions whose prevalence we have depicted in some detail for thirteen centuries of thought continued to have weight for a long time thereafter. On the occult and magical side, moreover, later writers like Henry Cornelius Agrippa, Trithemius, or Cardan were to add little or nothing to what had been often repeated before. In the field of experimental science, on the other hand, a period of greater progress came later. Gradually, too,—very gradually it would seem until almost our own time—scepticism was to come to prevail among scientists as to the possibility of magic in any of its forms in the world of nature. A great task still awaits him who shall trace the slow rise of effective scepticism through such writings against astrology as those of Nicholas Oresme in the fourteenth, and Pico della Mirandola, who at the same time believed in magic, in the fifteenth century, and in such criticisms of pseudo-science in general as Sir Thomas Browne’s History of Vulgar Errors in the seventeenth century;[3011] and likewise the gradual dislodgment of the conception of occult virtue and influence by that of natural law through the disclosure of many of nature’s former secrets by scientific instruments and research.
Science not stagnant during it.
However, the disclosure of such secrets had already begun when the period of our investigation opened and it continued during our period of thirteen centuries, which was no such age of retrogression or stagnation as it has formerly been depicted. The ideas and discoveries of Hellenic, not to say oriental, science persisted and were preserved by medieval men to a greater extent than has been generally recognized; and to them the medieval men added questions, observations, and even discoveries of their own. Not only did curiosity concerning nature’s secrets continue, but the authority of the ancients was often received with scepticism; and a marked tendency runs through our period to rely upon rationalism and experimental method. I have exposed the Physiologus myth, the Florilegia myth, the legend of Roger Bacon as a lone herald of modern experimental science, the notion that Vincent of Beauvais adequately sums up all medieval science, and a number of other modern “vulgar errors” concerning medieval learning. I have shown that medieval men were wider readers than has often been thought, that the scholastics presented their material in a more systematic way than classical writers, that the Latin of the thirteenth century has a clearer style and shows more direct thinking than the vernaculars of the fifteenth century. Should we, moreover, go on to examine in detail the writings of the early modern centuries, I suspect that we would find them repeating the medieval authors just as these had repeated the classical authorities. Gesner, for instance, in his History of Animals, 1551-1587, copied Albertus Magnus as well as Aristotle. And of the scientific notions with which the men of the sixteenth century have been credited by their admirers many might be found on closer scrutiny and comparison to date back to classical or medieval authors.
Nor a mere handmaid of religion.
Nor can I agree that natural science in the middle ages, as has been said of medieval philosophy, was a mere handmaid of religion. Friar Bacon pointed out, it is true, how experimental science might serve the Church, but he also wished the Church to advance the study of science. And in many ways the Church did so, while its opposition to scientific research at that time has been grossly exaggerated. It is true that the Biblical and Christian conception of a created universe was generally accepted, but the Aristotelian and astrological conception of the heavenly bodies as eternal and incorruptible was scarcely less influential, and many writers held both conceptions, however inconsistent this may seem to us. We have met with some extreme instances of the religious point of view affecting the attitude toward nature, notably the idea that human sin affects or even upsets the course of nature; but we have also seen that the moralizing and allegorizing supposed to characterize medieval nature-study have been greatly over-estimated. For ancient pagans like Pliny and Seneca the study of nature seems to have taken the place of religion in large measure, but the introduction of Christianity did not result in the discontinuance or estoppal of the study of nature, nor in its reduction to a state of servitude. Medieval science was somewhat under the wing of the Church, as were so many other activities now purely secular, but science even in the middle ages was learning to use its own wings. Both in Mohammedan and Christian society profane learning in general and science in particular made progress, and the remains of Arabic science would be much scantier than they are, were it not for the fact that many works are preserved solely in Latin translations.
The belief in occult virtue.
But many secrets of nature still remained undiscovered in our period, and hence it is not surprising that the conception of occult virtue in nature, of occult influence exerted by animals, herbs, and gems, or by stars and spirits, still prevailed to such an extent among men of the highest scientific attainments then possible. How potent this conception was, has been shown by the continued use of amulets, of ligatures and suspensions, by the general belief in fascination, physiognomy, number mysticism, and divination from dreams. Some still countenanced the occult force of words, figures, characters, and images, or of this and that rite, ceremonial, and form. Especially surprising is the prevalence of lot-casting under the pseudo-scientific form of geomancy. But others had begun to doubt the efficacy of some or most of these things. Animism had pretty much had its day; necromancy and the notory art received relatively little attention, although the Church appears to have rather encouraged them by insisting upon the existence and power of evil spirits. But even the fathers and theologians made the point that demons work their marvels largely through their superior knowledge of natural forces. Much more in science and medicine have we seen the notion of spiritual force displaced by that of occult natural virtue, and use made of natural substances rather than of incantations. Some of our authors would explain the results achieved by incantations entirely by the force of suggestion. Of the later witchcraft delusion which overpowered the learned as well as the populace we have found relatively few harbingers. The discussion of sorcery and witchcraft has been less in our medieval than in our ancient authors, and less among our scientists than among our theologians. The subject has been broached chiefly in connection with formal definitions of magic arts or the practical problem of impotency after marriage.
Dominance of astrology.