Aside from unfairness in the general tone and mode of presentation, — Cosmas Indicopleustes, for instance, is set forth as a typical representative of mediaeval science of the clerical type, while Albertus Magnus is not permitted to stand as a representative of “theological” science at all but is pictured as one inclined to true science who was frightened into the paths of theology by an ecclesiastical (tyranny bitterly hostile to scientific endeavor — the author makes some inexcusable mistakes in details. For instance, after speaking of “theological” methods, he proceeds (vol. i, p. 33): “Hence such contributions as that the basilisk kills serpents by his breath and men by his glance,” apparently in serene ignorance of the fact that this statement about the basilisk was a commonplace of ancient science. Again (vol. i, p. 386) he tells us that in 1163 the Council of Tours and Alexander III “forbade the study of physics to ecclesiastics, which of course in that age meant the prohibition of all such scientific studies to the only persons likely to make them.” On turning to the passage cited we find the prohibition to be that persons,who have vowed to lead a monastic life shall not absent themselves from their monasteries for the purpose of studying “physica” (which the context indicates means medicine, not physics), or reading law. The canon does not apply to all ecclesiastics, and it is as absurd to infer from it that “all such scientific studies were prohibited to the only persons likely to make them” as to conclude that henceforth no one could study civil law. To argue from a single piece of legislation is hazardous in any case. (For the canon, see Harduin, vol. vi, pt. ii, p. 1598. Canon viii.)
On the whole the book strikes one as an unscientific eulogy of science and a bigoted attack on bigotry. The inconsistency of the author’s professions and practice, to say nothing of the somewhat perplexing arrangement of his material, reminds one of Pliny’s Natural History.
CHAPTER IV
Some Antecedents of the Belief in Magic in the Roman Empire
Writers who have discussed the intellectual life under the Roman Empire generally agree that it was not marked by originality and creative power, and owed a perhaps unusually large debt to the past. The cosmopolitan character of the Empire, the mingling at that time of the science, theology, philosophy and superstition of different nations, religions and races, deserve equal emphasis. The lore of the magi of Persia, the occult science of Egypt, perhaps even the doctrines of the gymnosophists of India, may be regarded, together with that belief in divination which played such a role in classical religion and government and with other superstitious notions of Greeks and Italians, as contributory to the prominence of magic in the Empire.
To discuss with any attempt at completeness the influence of the past upon the belief in magic in the Empire lies, however, outside the province of this essay. Pliny has shown us something of the union of magic with science in the literature before his day. Philo of Alexandria, Apuleius and the fame of Hermes Trismegistus may give us some notion of the influence of the East. In other writers of the-period of which we treat one may discern further traces of the thought and learning of the past. In general such evidence must suffice. We shall, however, presently take occasion to support our contention that Pliny gives one 56 [56 a fairly good idea of science before his day, by a few citations from two writers of repute, one a Greek and one a Roman, of the period before the Empire. Moreover, the great historical importance of Greek philosophy and the fact that, besides playing a prominent part in Roman culture, it exercised a powerful direct influence on Christian Europe long after the fall of Rome, seem to justify some treatment of its doctrines. Especially may we mention Plato and Aristotle, who exerted great influence not only during classical times, but also the one in the Middle Ages, the other in the period following the decline of Scholasticism.
We naturally incline to regard this earlier period of more or less distinctively Greek thought and learning as a golden age, comparatively speaking, characterized by sane thinking if not also by careful investigation of nature, and free from superstition, credulity and mysticism. The general opinion seems to be that magic entered science and learning and was accepted by men of intellectual prominence only when mental decay had set in and when Oriental influence had become a powerful force.
Yet something might be said for the opposite view that this earlier age combined magic with its science and philosophy as much, if not more, than the later time. We know that Greek philosophy had its beginnings in mythology; and if the representatives of its maturity accepted the Greek religion with its auspices drawn from sacrifices, its oracles and the like, we may with reason ask, is it probable that they would hesitate to give similar doctrines a place in their scientific and philosophical systems? Pliny, for his part, evidently regarded himself as less credulous and as less inclined to magic than the ancient Greeks, although it is true that he attributed their belief to Oriental influence. He declared that Pythagoras, Empedocles, Democritus and Plato had learned the magic art abroad and had taught it on their return.[114] Beside the name of Hippocrates in the field of medicine he set that of Democritus in the domain of magic.[115] Elsewhere he said that Pythagoras and Democritus, having embraced the doctrine of the magi, first expounded the properties of magic plants in the Western world.[116] In Cicero’s De Divinatione, Epicurus is alone of the Greek philosophers declared free from trust in divination, and Panaetius is said to have been the only Stoic to reject astrology.[117] Fortunately we are not here concerned to measure either relatively or absolutely with any attempt at exactness the amount of magic in the learning of the closing centuries of Greek national life, but only to investigate whether in the philosophy of the Greeks there were not theories at least liable to encourage a later age to belief in magic. There was, for instance, the view of the Stoics that the universe is a single living whole — a theory well fitted to form the starting-point for a belief in sympathetic magic. Also their doctrine that events are all arranged in a fatal causal series was favorable to divination. Quintus Cicero, represented as upholding the truth of that art, cites the Stoics as authority, and we may safely assume that Seneca drew his view of divination largely from the same source.
The doctrine of Pythagoras also deserves mention, for it has played a great role in history. He is said to have held that the whole world is, and that the life of man ought to be, harmoniously ordered in accordance with mathematical principles; nay more, that such principles are living things and that numbers are the essence of the universe. The logical conclusion is that by skilful use of mere numbers man can move heaven and earth. As the poet, eulogizing Michael Scot, put it; the “mathematici” by their art affect numbers, by numbers affect the procession of the stars, and by the stars move the universe. The employment of characters constructed of numbers or of geometrical figures, the use of numerical formulae as remedies or of compounds of three portions of three kinds of drugs applied during three successive days, is raised from the plane of superstition to the level of science. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the heavenly bodies with their apparently unchanging regularity of movement are the governors of our existence. Plato, who adopted the Pythagorean doctrines at least to a considerable extent, declared that the loftiest function of the sense of sight was to survey the heavens, an occupation by which we gain philosophy.[118] Like the Pythagoreans also, he associated the four elements with regular solids. The cube represented earth; the octohedron was water; the tetrahedron, fire; and the icosahedron, air.[119] The remaining regular solid, the dodecahedron, was held to represent the universe as a whole.
Towards magic, as he understood it, Plato’s attitude seems to have been sceptical, though perhaps not confidently so. He maintained that persons acquainted with medicine and prophets or diviners were the only ones who could know the nature of poisons which worked naturally, and of such things as incantations, magic knots and waxen images; and that since other men had no certain knowledge of such things, they ought not to fear but to despise them. He admitted, however, that there was no use in trying to convince most men of this and that legislation against sorcery was necessary.[120] He himself occasionally mentioned charms or soothsaying in a matter-of-fact way.