| Albert the Great by Sr. M. Albert Hughes, O.P.
6 Doctor Universalis |
  Autumn 1987 Vol. 39 Supplement |
IN one of his books Ulrich von Strassburg who is usually described as Albert's favorite pupil, says of his master that "he was the wonder and miracle of his age," and Pius II in his dogmatic letter to the Turks of 1464, hails him as one "who was ignorant of nothing and knew all that was knowable." In his preface -- in verse after the fashion of the times -- to the first printed edition of the works of the saint, published in 1651, Peter Jammy, the editor, wrote the following lines:
Scriptis praeclarus fuisti;
Mundo luxisti
Quia totum scibile scisti.
("You enlightened all men, you were made illustrious by your writings: you illumined the whole world because you knew everything that could be known.") (1)
Similarly, Pope Pius XI declared,
Historians and those who have written about him have rightly singled out for special praise the extraordinary universality of his mind; for he was occupied not only with divine things and the truths of philosophy, but also with all other human sciences. Bartholomew of Lucca, a contemporary, declared that in his knowledge of all the sciences and in his method of teaching, he excelled all the learned doctors of his day.It was the universality of Albert's genius which above all else gained him the admiration of his contemporaries. Others had been deeper thinkers; though no one could call his thought superficial. Others had been more original thinkers; though many of the theories which he enunciated or to which he pointed have been hailed by those who followed him as the great discoveries of their age. Others have been more polished, more finished in their style; but no one has shown such a combination of depth, originality, and versatility of thought as did Albert the Great.
He would seem to have gathered up in himself the very different temperaments of a metaphysician, a mystic, and a scientist.... It is [not easy] to find people who, to the study of a wide range of subjects, unite true depth, and severe scientific precision.... In the history of these great minds we have to jump from Aristotle to Albert the Great.(2)Before examining more closely the extent of the saint's learning it is well to bear in mind that both his knowledge and his ignorance were conditioned by the circumstances of his age. In the intellectual sphere Western Europe had received two great legacies from antiquity, the Christian Faith and the treasures of the Graeco-Roman civilization embodied in its philosophical and scientific works. In the Dark Ages political and social conditions were such that only ecclesiastics had the leisure and opportunity for study and the pursuit of education. Therefore the curriculum was determined by their requirements -- theology, Holy Scripture, and canon and civil law. Theology dominated everything, and from the inheritance of antiquity only those things were taken which would best serve towards the understanding and development of that science. "Science" in the modem sense was unknown, and natural objects were only used to illustrate the supernatural. (3)
What might by called the text-book of the natural science of the day was the Physiologus (ca. A.D. 300), a collection of fairy stories, fables, and myths about beasts and the things of nature and their influence for good or ill. From this book was drawn the rich symbolism which found expression in the architecture of the Middle Ages. The works of Isidore of Seville (ca. 600), though less popular, were regarded as the best authorities and St. Thomas Aquinas often quotes them.
By 1200 and therefore during Albert's early years the situation was rather different. A good deal of Greek learning, till then almost unknown to Western Europeans, had become available through translations from the Greek and Arabic, e.g., in the medical writings of the School of Salerno and the works of Adelard of Bath (ca. 1115). Some alchemical and astronomical as well as medical works had been translated. The court of Emperor Frederick II was the great center of European science, but it seems almost certain that all scientific scholars of the thirteenth century received their stimulus from Sicily, Southern Italy, and Spain, where Latin, Greek, Moslem, and Jewish cultures met on equal terms.
Even in theology, books were few and consisted principally of the Bible and commentaries thereon, and of the Sentences of Peter Lombard, which was the nearest approach to a text-book of theology in the modem sense. Philosophy was more or less proscribed in the schools, but at the time of St. Albert it was insinuating itself through the writings of Arabian and Jewish philosophers who were disciples of Aristotle. Such in outline is the intellectual background against which St. Albert's achievement must be judged -- not according to the standards of our own day.
THE SCIENTIST
Albert was a student before he was a religious, for he was a student at the University of Padua when he entered the Order of Preachers. As noted earlier, Padua was then the center of the study of the liberal arts. From this one may assume that Albert's tastes naturally tended in the direction of what we now call science, but which in those days usually went under the name of philosophy (philosophy in the modem sense and theology were later developments). Yet from the outset there seems to have been present a tendency, springing from grace, for Albert to see all things from a theological point of view -- as coming from God, leading to God, and having God as their first cause and final end. Such an attitude of mind shows the workings of the gifts of wisdom and knowledge which, together with the gift of prudence -- "the executive of wisdom," are perhaps the most characteristic traits of the saint's spiritual physiognomy. He was a scientist by nature, but a saint by grace, and the natural was always seen, loved, and taught, in its relation to the supernatural.
Albert was a scientist from the start, and a scientist he always remained. He merited the title in a twofold sense; first, because he investigated and treated of the various branches of knowledge which can be classed under the general head of the natural sciences; and second, and with even more justice, because he possessed the true scientific temperament which bases all its researches on observation, takes over the results of others only when morally certain of their validity, and never seeks to prove from the data it possesses more than can be legitimately deduced therefrom. In all this he was the first scientist of our Western culture and the greatest biologist since Aristotle whom, however, he corrected on many points; and he was the forerunner of the modem researchers.
Albert was endowed with a singular gift for the investigation of nature, a keen eye well adapted to the observation and determination of the slightest variation, a calm judgment capable of excluding any but sure results, and above all a sensitive heart which embraced in its love the whole of nature down to its smallest elements. As a boy he was not too carried away by the excitement of the chase to notice the behavior of the wild falcons which came to receive their reward and then flew off. We can picture him as a youth in Italy standing watching the workmen who were sawing up marble blocks and questioning them about the head of a bearded man, crowned with a royal crown, which he saw in one of them.
The countenance [he says] had no other defect, save that the forehead was too high and ascending towards the top of the head. All of us who examined were satisfied that it was the work of nature. And I [note that he was still a youth] being questioned as to the cause of the disproportion of the forehead, replied that this stone had been coagulated by the work of vapor, and that by means of a more powerful heat, the vapor had risen without order or measure. (De Mineralibus, lib. iii, tr. 3, c.1)We see him again in Padua pushing his way to the front of a crowd which was watching the opening of a well and waiting anxiously for the recovery of the man who lay unconscious for two hours, asphyxiated by the fumes which had killed his two companions. Such interests persisted throughout his life, for we know from the observations he recorded in his writings which refer to what he had seen in different parts of Europe that, unlike St. Dominic, who kept his eyes cast down while traveling, Albert kept his very wide open and missed nothing that was worth seeing. Fish in the Danube, squirrels in the forest, cattle, deer, birds, insects,(4) and plants all came under Albert's scrutiny so that he was able to give descriptions such as have not been improved upon even by modem scientists with all the instruments they have at their disposal. His description of the spider must have been the result of hours of patient watching. The accounts of the habits of ants and bees must have required long periods of observation out of doors, perhaps in the garden where the saint used to retire to sing hymns when wearied by prayer and study. Once he found three handfuls of honey in a nest of wild bees, but he remarks: "It was unfinished, inferior honey."
His description of the ant-lion may be quoted not only for its interest but because it illustrates Albert's carefulness to distinguish between what he had seen and what he had been told -- a rare trait in those days.
The formicaleon (the lish of Job 4:11) is called the ant-lion, which is also called murmicaleon. To begin with, this animal is not an ant as some say. For I have a great deal of experiences of it and have shown my colleagues that this animal has very much the shape of the tick, and it hides itself in the sand, digging in it a hemispherical cup, at the bottom of which is the ant-lion's mouth; and when the ants, bent on gain, cross the pit, it seizes and devours them. This we have very often watched. In the winter also it is said to rob the ants of their food, for it gathers nothing for itself in the summer. (De Animalibus, xxvi, 20, quoted by F. Sherwood Taylor in Science Past and Present, p. 49.)
History tells us how Albert's friend and pupil Thomas Aquinas was so abstracted at table that he even forgot that he was dining with the King of France, so that one may reasonably assume that he did not take much interest in the food set before him; while we are told that St. Dominic partook only of one dish and that sparingly, and then went to sleep while the brethren finished their meal. This does not appear to have been the case with Albert. As early as 1245 he had come to be known as an authority on fish, and when he was then in Paris the son of the King of Castile presented him with a curious mussel shell, on which were engraved numerous tiny serpents. (5) His biographer concludes that it would be during dinner, at which fish would usually be served, that the saint had leisure to examine in detail the different specimens which were set before him. A similar explanation is given for the perfection of his description of an apple from the rind to the core, which has never been surpassed. Albert also remarks that once when eating oysters he found ten pearls at one meal, which leads one to think that his appetite must have been such as is usually associated with men of his nation.
These details, which incidentally afford a charming insight into the human side of the saint, show that his scientific instinct was always on the alert. Always and in all places he was observing the objects which lay around him, not as a mere onlooker but with the eye of a true scientist, and one who was versed first of all in the science of the saints -- "investigating natural causes which are the instruments through which the divine will is manifested" (St. Albert).
Albert also showed his true scientific spirit in the manner in which he used the works of Aristotle, who alone had so far produced any really comprehensive treatises on the natural sciences. However, these writings of the Greek philosopher were available only in very imperfect and defective texts. They were also obscure in many places and often inaccurate, so that the saint's task was, to paraphrase his own words, to provide a natural history which would make Aristotle intelligible.
This he did by following the arrangement of the Greek's book, in places giving a commentary or a paraphrase, elsewhere simply reproducing the original text, but frequently making additions, corrections, supplying deficiencies and missing portions, and whenever possible substituting examples from his own observations. As they related to the northern countries which were familiar to his readers, these would be more helpful than those in the original.
Very often Albert disposed of the myths concerning flora and fauna which had been prevalent in the ancient world and persisted in his own day. But because he did not free himself from all of them, he has long been regarded by scientists as a romancer and the slavish and uncritical follower of Aristotle. (Only since the end of the nineteenth century has his true position as a scientist been recognised.) But "whosoever believes that Aristotle was a god, must also believe that he never erred. But if one believes that he was a man, then doubtless he was liable to error just as we are." So Albert wrote in his Physicorum, tr. 1,xiv. And again in Meteororum, lib. iii, tr. 4, cap. 11: "And therefore I think that Aristotle must have spoken from the opinions of his predecessors and not from the truth of demonstration or experiment." In his Summa Theologiae (p. 1, tr. 1, q. 4), there is a whole section entitled "The Errors of Aristotle." This could hardly have come from a "slavish follower"!
Albert's reputation for being a romancer was probably partly due to the books falsely attributed to him, and partly to the ignorance of critics who did not understand the background of his knowledge. It is very remarkable how often he rejects marvelous tales, and how he distinguishes what he has read or been told from what he has seen. His nomination by Pope Pius XII as Patron of all the Natural Sciences shows that the Church has now realized his greatness in this sphere of knowledge. He has yet to come into his own among scientific circles in general. That he will do so eventually, when the critical edition of his writings are completed, is almost certain. Albert treated of astronomy, meteorology, climatology, mineralogy, alchemy, chemistry, physics, mechanics, anthropology, zoology, psychology, weaving, navigation, architecture, and botany, among other things. In almost every subject he anticipated by several centuries some of the major discoveries of modem times. Speaking of Albert's botanical writings a nineteenth-century investigator said, "To the man who was complete master of all learning of his day and definitely advanced it, who for three centuries was never equalled let alone surpassed, the finest laurels are rightly due." The De Vegetabilibus, a masterpiece of its kind, owes its perfection to four main considerations; the independence with which the subject is treated; the acuteness and range of the observations, many of which were quite new; the clarity and precision of the description of original plants; and the attempt at a systematic classification to separate the essential from the non-essential, and to group together all plants with essential characteristics in common. In this section he made the celebrated division of flowers into the bird or wing-shaped, the bell-shaped, and the star-shaped. In many cases the natural science of today has completed the work which Albert began but never had time to pursue seriously. A famous botanist has declared, "The defects in his book are the fault of his age; its merits belong to him alone."
He was the first to mention spinach in western literature, the first to point out the difference between tree buds enveloped by scaly coverings and the buds of plants which are without them, the first to notice the influence of light and temperature on the growth of trees as affecting their height and spread, the first to establish that the sap in the root is tasteless, becoming more flavored as it ascends -- a phenomenon noted again by the English naturalist Knight at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Similarly, in his zoological treatise De Animalibus, which is based on Aristotle and Avicenna, Albert made many new observations and gave detailed descriptions of all the fish, birds, animals, and insects which he had encountered on his journeyings on foot through Germany, France and Italy. He is said to have been the first to describe the weasel, the rat, the dormouse, the martens, and also the spook-fish. He rejected many popular medieval myths, such as that of the pelican opening its breast to feed its young, or that the cock in its old age lays an egg from which a serpent is hatched. But, again, because he included fabulous creatures in his list of animals, his zoological knowledge has been under-estimated and his contributions to this science insufficiently appreciated.
The dog seems to have interested him especially, likewise the whale and the bee, but one of his most charming and characteristic descriptions is that of the squirrel (De Animalibus, 1421):
The pirolus is an extremely lively little animal; it nests in the tops of trees, has a long bushy tail, and swings itself from tree to tree, in doing so using its tail as a rudder. When on the move it drags its tail behind it, but when sitting it carries it erect up its back. When taking food it holds it as do the other rodents in its hands, so to speak, and places it in its mouth. Its food consists of nuts and fruit and such-like things. Its flesh is sweet and palatable. In Germany its color is black when young, and later reddish, in old age it is even partly grey. In Poland it is reddish grey and in parts of Russia quite grey.Among the characteristics of the cat he includes modesty -- not the true human modesty, but something remotely resembling it, love of beauty, and a habit of biting. Of the nightingale he remarks, "...I have observed how it flew up to good singers, to whose song it quietly listened, and then, as if to challenge them, started up its own song. In this way two nightingales mutually provoke one another to song" (De Animalibus, 1509).
The description of the capture of a small lizard by a spider is very graphic.
When the little creature had got itself entangled, the spider at once came down and spun a web round its mouth so that she might not be injured in that way. They she settled down to the creature and bit and stabbed it until it was dead or quite helpless. Then she went to the net where she stored her provisions and drew her prey after her by a web. This I saw myself with my own eyes and marvelled at the ingenuity of the spider. (De Animalibus, 630, n. 138)
To his acute observation Albert seems to have united great dexterity in the use of the scalpel, as is shown by his dissections of plants and insects. Thus it should be noted that although De Animalibus is not quite so free from the myths of the age as is the De Vegetabilibus, the recent appearance of the critical edition has proved that it is invaluable to the zoologist. Critical editions of his other works in the category of the natural sciences have not yet been published, but sufficient research has been undertaken to make it evident that here too Albert occupies a leading rank among scientific thinkers and investigators.
In an age when all save the learned believed the earth to be flat and inhabited only in the north, Albert asserted that it was a sphere, proving his thesis as Aristotle had done before him by arguments from the force of gravity (in which some critics have seen a foreshadowing of Laplace's theory), which, he said, would also enable the southern zone to be inhabited. He even believed that the greater part of the earth was not only habitable but actually inhabited, except at the poles where he imagines the cold to be excessive. If there are any animals there, he says, "they must have very thick skins to defend them from the rigor of the climate, and they are probably of a white color." Did he here anticipate the theory of protective coloration? His treatise on climate and the various branches of geography foreshadowed many modern theories. The formation of the earth's crust is due to a slow cooling of a central fire; mountain ranges are the result of upheaval. He correctly traces the chief mountain chains of Europe, with rivers that take their source in each, mentioning sections of the coast which have been submerged by the sea's action in later times, and islands which have been formed by volcanic action. He treats too of the effect of latitude and longitude and other factors in influencing local climate. His description of Germany surpasses, and in several places corrects, that of Tacitus whose Germania has always been considered a classic on the subject. The explorations of the fifteenth century are said to have been inspired, at least indirectly, by the saint's geographical writings. In his description of the British Isles he speaks of the island of Tile or Thule, not yet visited by explorers, and probably uninhabitable by reason of its frightful climate. He several times refers to his own maps, none of which have come down to us.
In physics, some of his explanations could well have been taken from a modem text-book. Sound, he says, is caused by the impact of two hard bodies, and this vibration is propagated in the form of a sphere whose center is the point of percussion. Light is converted into heat, he declares, on being absorbed by a body. He speaks of the refraction of the solar ray, of the laws of the refraction of light, and remarks that none of the ancients and few of the modems were acquainted with the properties of mirrors. He was familiar with the properties of magnets.
He seems to have undertaken experiments in alchemy, and is sometimes said to have been the first to isolate the element arsenic. He compiled a list of over one hundred minerals, giving a description of each, and in the course of this book he remarks, "At one time when I was away from home I wandered far and wide to places where metals were to be found that I might discover their nature and properties" (De Mineralibus, lib. iii, tr. 1, cap. 1). Again: "I saw and studied how they worked in copper in our parts, namely Paris and Cologne and other places where I was" (ibid., lib. iv, tr. 1, cap. 6).
Although he had no telescope he decided that the Milky Way must be composed of myriads of stars, and he says that the dark spots on the moon are not due to the earth's shadow, as the ancients believed, but to configurations on her own surface. He corrects Aristotle's assertion that a lunar rainbow occurs only twice in fifty years. "I myself have observed two in a single year," he says.
In anatomy he takes the vertebral column as the basis of the structure, whereas in his day and for long afterwards most anatomists began with the skull. In this sphere again he takes Aristotle to task. The Greek had held that man had eight ribs on either side. Albert declares, "Man has seven true ribs and five false ribs on either side."
Mathematics, anthropology, biology -- every branch of science provides examples of Albert's anticipation of modem theories and discoveries, and it has been said that if his principles had been followed science might have been spared a detour of three centuries.
But he did not confine himself to theories. his researches must have involved many experiments, and one wonders how he managed to find time for them amid all his other activities. He is known to have invented some sort of hydraulic machine; he possessed apparatus for registering the phenomena of an earthquake; he is said to have invented the first greenhouse. He made figures move by means of mercury, and in the nineteenth century a cup was still preserved in the museum of Cologne with which he was supposed to have cured every disease. Such was his interest in architecture that he produced plans for the Dominican churches of Cologne and Louvain. (St. Dominic's Priory in London is modelled upon the latter.) His influence on the growth of gothic architecture in Germany was so great that in ancient manuals the original style is called "the Albertine science." He was evidently something of a musician and a poet too, but all his songs are lost and most of his verses. Rudolph of Nymegen says that he composed many proses and sequences in honor of our Blessed Lady -- no doubt those which he used to sing in the garden, offices of St. Joseph and the Crown of Thorns, and the sequences in honor of the Blessed Trinity beginning "Profitentes Unitatem," which was in the old Dominican Graduale. (6)
On this basis of fact many legends grew up. Albert was thought to have a cure for every disease -- he had written on medicine, Rudolph says -- and so the goblet he had made was regarded as miraculous. He invented so many things that the common people believed he could produce something to satisfy every need. Despite his own condemnation of magic and astrology the legend grew up that he was something of a magician. So there is the story of the talking automaton which St. Thomas is supposed to have found behind a curtain and to have smashed up, crying out, "Get thee behind me Satan," thinking he was faced by a diabolical illusion. Whereupon Albert is said to have entered the room and asked, "What have you done? You have destroyed the labors of thirty years!" This story does not ring true to what we know of the character of either saint, and legend has credited Roger Bacon also with the invention of a talking head. But it does give some idea of what people could believe about Albert. The reputed production of a summer's day in the priory garden in honor of the visit of the Emperor William of Holland may also be a magical illusion, but it may refer to his hothouse if the tradition that he invented it is true.
In the order of the miraculous, Albert is said to have had a vision of our Blessed Lady and the Four Crowned Martyrs, the patrons of architects, while the plans for Cologne Cathedral were under discussion. At a word from the Mother of God and under her direction the saints drew the plans for a most wonderful edifice. Then the dream faded, but Albert remembered and reproduced the design, which was the one chosen.
Legends such as these have earned for the saint the reputation of magician as well as the contempt of scientists -- at least until the process of his rehabilitation began in the past century. But enough has been said to show that Albert has every right to be regarded as one of the greatest scientists Europe has produced, and he has still a third claim to such a title, one which, if it is recognized before it is too late may yet be able to save both science and the world from the destruction towards which they seem to be heading.
For science, as we understand it today, seeks to know what can be quantitatively observed about externals -- the shapes, sizes, movements, and changes of things -- and then endeavors so to manipulate and arrange these things and circumstances so that the human will shall be done. But its sphere is very limited, its conclusions can only be provisional, its laws are only probabilities. It can describe what a thing is, how it works in terms of matter and energy. But it cannot, nor is it meant to, explain the ultimate reason of things. That is the task of the philosopher, who can and should make use of the data provided by science. But that is what the science of today tries to do. Although it cannot see things as a whole, nor even for that matter see even the minutest thing as a whole, it limits reality to what it can observe in its test-tube and admits only one explanation of reality -- the materialistic one from which the spiritual and God area priori excluded. Thus it sets itself up as a "philosophy" in which neither natural philosophy nor theology can even make an appearance. Rather than acknowledge its subordinate position in the hierarchy of knowledge, it refuses to recognize any form of wisdom other than its own, though in truth mere scientia is not wisdom at all.
Albert was a true scientist, remarkably free from that confusion between science and philosophy, as we know them, which was so general in his day.
There are some people who attribute all these things to divine order [he says], and say that we must not consider in them any other cause save the will of God. This in part we can agree to..yet.. we are not seeking a reason or explanation of the divine will but rather investigating natural causes which are as instruments through which God's will is manifested. It is not sufficient to know these things in a general sort of way; what we are looking for is the cause of each individual thing according to the nature of belonging to it. (De causis proprieatatum elementorum, lib. 1, tr. 1, cap. 9)But he was an equally great philosopher and he pursued his scientific studies from a teleological standpoint, realizing with St. Paul that "from the creation of the world the invisible things of God are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made" (Rom 1:20). He knew that the ultimate answer to the problem of the origin and purpose of the universe which science itself can never solve is, in the words of St. Thomas, that God "has produced things into being in order that his goodness might be communicated to creatures and be represented by them" (Summa Theologiae I, Q.47, a. 1). The whole universe is the work of God's hands, which guide it and direct it to its end. It came forth from God and to God it must return, and each thing is what it is because God so wills it, and because it thus best serves the purpose of the whole. God preserves it not from afar but from within, and the true natural philosopher, such as Albert was, is conscious "not only that the beauty (of things) is a reflection of [God's] infinite beauty, but that the invisible beauty is within them and about them, hallowing them." (7)
And when, like Albert, the natural philosopher is above all a theologian and a saint, he or she will recognize, in the things that are made, traces of that Triune Life of knowledge and love which is the being of the God of revelation. The One who is present everywhere in creation is Father, Son, and Spirit of Love, and that love of God's own goodness is the ultimate explanation of everything.
Science has suffered considerably for having disregarded Albert's principles of experience for nearly three centuries: it will suffer still more if it does not accept his teleological conception of science before it is too late -- if it does not recognize that science of itself can never provide a philosophy of life, but at best can only supply the material on which others may build one. That is why Pope Pius XI declared that
The present moment would seem to be the time when the glorification of Albert the Great was most calculated to win souls to be the sweet yoke of Christ. Albert is exactly the Saint whose example should inspire this modern age -- so full of hope for its scientific discoveries.... In him the rays of divine and human science meet to form a shining splendor.... His life is a standing proof that there is no opposition, but rather the closest fellowship between science and faith.... Like St. Jerome, Albert, as it were with powerful voice, declares and proves in his wonderful writings that science worthy of the name, and faith, and a life lived according to the principles of faith, can, and indeed should, all flourish together... because supernatural faith is the crown and perfection of science.
Albert was then first of all a scientist, endowed with the true scientific temperament and retaining all his life a deep interest in things scientific. His writings on scientific subjects embraced every branch of that form of learning and occupy a high place among such writings of any age. Because of them, because of his scientific spirit, and because of the discoveries which he made and the principles which he laid down, he is rightly considered one of the first true scientists of our Western culture. After Aristotle in order of time, he is given a place among the greatest scientists of all ages, and is undeniably the greatest Catholic scientist of any age. And yet in a life filled with teaching, preaching, writing, and apostolic work of every kind, his scientific interest took the place almost of a hobby.
Even so, natural science was an important part of the curriculum for the Faculty of Arts in which Aristotle's writings were read in the order in which they are commented on by Albert, who may well have taught them in the schools of Arts in the order. He certainly wrote his commentaries at the earnest request of the brethren, even though he also had a wider end in view. As he says himself in his commentary on Aristotle's Physics:
Our object in these treatises on natural science is to meet as far as lies in our power, the wishes of the brethren of our Order, who now for several years have been begging us to compile such a book on the things of Nature, as would give them a complete natural history, by means of which they could arrive at a sufficient understanding of Aristotle's writings. Though we do not consider ourselves to be equal to such a work, we could not resist the wishes of the brethren.But although the Arts, in which natural science occupied an increasingly large place, were important as preliminary studies, theology still remained the friars' chief preoccupation and to that Albert must have devoted the lion's share of his teaching and study. Yet his academic life itself was only one aspect of an existence which was crammed with activities of every sort, in the midst of which he found time to collect the material for writing those treatises which give him a place among the leaders of science.
A biographer, Thomas of Chantimpré, reports this story which he declares he had often heard from the lips of the saint himself, to prove the supernatural nature of his vocation to cultivate the natural sciences:
One day when Albert was seated at the table in his tiny cell ardently seeking the solution of some scientific problem, the evil spirit made his appearance under the guise of a Dominican friar. Feigning modesty and compassion, he first spoke of [Albert's] too great application to study, representing to him that he was overburdening both soul and body, taking no care of his health and wasting his energy on things which were foreign to his profession. Albert, supernaturally enlightened as to the designs of the evil one, was content to reply by making the sign of the Cross and the apparition disappeared.One wonders what Albert the Great would have achieved had he devoted the whole of his time, energy, and mighty intellect to this one congenial subject. Perhaps it is as a reward for the self-abnegation involved in this sacrifice that he is now honored in the Church as Patron of all the Natural Sciences.
1. This is, no doubt, a quotation from Rudolph of Nymegen who says: "...in omnibus
scientiis tunc singularis excellentiae habebatur, ut non immerito illud quod vulgariter ab
eo dicitur sibi applicari posset:
scriptis lux clara fuisti.
Mundo luxisti
quia totum scibile scisti!"
2. Pope Pius XI at the close of the "Albert Week" held at Rome in 1930.
3. Perhaps in the works of Isidore and the Venerable Bede there is some interest in things for their own sake. John Scottus Eriugena (ca. 850), in his De Divisione Naturae, gives a very wide and well informed account of the world and its contents. Anywhere where Greek was known, as it was then in Ireland, the level was higher than elsewhere.
4. Observations on insects were very remarkable. There do not seem to have been any more until the seventeenth century.
5. This was probably the work of some small worm-like creature that builds calcareous tubes on such cells.
6. This sequence is now generally ascribed to Adam of St. Victor. Cf. The Life of the Spirit, vol. I. No. 3 (September 1946), p. 73.
7. Fr. Gerald Vann, OP, The Divine Pity, p. 23
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