Translator’s Introduction
The text you are about to read is a disputatio, a formal academic exercise from the Jesuit University of Ingolstadt, printed in January 1632. The presiding professor was Conrad Henzel of the Society of Jesus, Ordinary Professor of Philosophy and Dean. The student defending the theses was Johann Geisler of Munich.
The work is structured in three chapters containing fifty theses. Chapter One defines nature in the Aristotelian sense: the intrinsic principle of motion and rest. Chapter Two examines art (ars), not in the modern sense of fine art, but as craft, technique, the human capacity to produce effects in external matter. This chapter includes a discussion of alchemy and whether the transmutation of gold is possible. Chapter Three treats magic, divided into natural magic (the manipulation of hidden natural causes) and superstitious or demonic magic. It catalogs what demons can and cannot do, drawing on the demonological work of Martin Del Rio.
The dedication is addressed to Werner Tserlaes, Count of Tilly, the commander of the Catholic League armies during the Thirty Years’ War. He was also the military governor of Ingolstadt. The dedicatory letter’s references to the tumults of war and fire threatening Bavaria’s borders were not rhetoric. Swedish forces under Gustav Adolf were advancing through Germany. Tilly would be mortally wounded at the Battle of Rain less than four months after this disputation was printed.
The text follows the conventions of Jesuit Scholastic philosophy. It argues by thesis, cites Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, the Coimbra commentators, Suarez, Del Rio, Pereira, and Lessius as its primary authorities. The Latin is 17th-century academic Latin, dense with abbreviations and cross-references.
This translation follows the structure of the original. Thesis numbers, chapter divisions, and the order of arguments are preserved. Where the OCR of the digitized text was ambiguous, I have translated what could be reliably read. The congratulatory poems at the end are rendered into English verse.
Title Page
A Philosophical Disputation on Nature, Art, and Magic
Which at the Catholic and Electoral University of Ingolstadt,
under the presidency of
Conrad Henzel, of the Society of Jesus, Ordinary Professor of Philosophy and present Dean,
will be publicly defended by
Johann Geisler of Munich, Bavaria, Bachelor of Philosophy, Student of Sacred Theology and Metaphysics.
In the year 1632, on the ___ day of January.
At Ingolstadt, from the press of Gregorius Haenlin.
Dedicatory Epistle
To the Most Illustrious Lord,
Werner Tserlaes, Count of Tilly,
Baron of Marbais, Lord of Balastre, etc., Councillor of War and Chamberlain to the Most August Emperor Ferdinand II and the Most Serene Elector Maximilian; Commander of Cavalry and Infantry, Prefect of Ingolstadt, etc.
His most esteemed Lord,
It so happens, Most Illustrious Lord, that this little book of mine, wandering like a candidate around the doors and thresholds of great men, desires to come into the light, but finds no patron. Now, returning to me as if in a circle from a long journey, it reports that it has knocked in vain at the doors of noble men: that everything is thrown into disorder by the tumults of war, and that the smoke of a fire spreading from nearby already threatens the borders of our Bavaria. Some intellects, distracted from gentler pursuits, have grown stiff with fear; others are still anxiously laboring in the council for the defense of the fatherland. Nowhere does Pallas appear except in armor. And if my book were admitted anywhere, its voice could not be heard above the crash of trumpets and drums resounding on all sides.
What was I to do in this state of affairs? I wished, indeed, for some Julius Caesar to survive into our age, whose single mind could embrace both military and literary cares at once. And I found in this age what I sought in antiquity. You, Most Illustrious Lord, seemed to me to be that man, who would permit your serious cares to be interrupted by my trifles, who could and would at the same time attend to the Republic’s arms and extend patronage to the Muses afflicted by the injustice of the times.
This was promised to me by your spirit, so benevolently disposed toward the liberal arts, which even in this most turbulent state of affairs, wearied by the meditation of military councils, seems never to find sweeter relaxation than among books. Indeed, the passage from your armory to your library has by now become the most natural transition of your daily habit. Why then should I suspect that my little book would be unwelcome to one for whom, even under arms, no day passes without a line?
I would indeed wish that this book were one that could adorn your most richly furnished and select library. Nevertheless, admit it, and grant it even the last corner in the lowest shelf, so that it may stand as a perpetual memorial not so much of my grateful spirit as of your benefits, by which you have so bound me and especially my father that we confess, even unwillingly, that we are unable to repay them. For to say nothing of my father, who, remembering the innumerable benefits with which he recalls being heaped from the House of Tilly, has been most devotedly attached to it for many years now and still today declares his name among its most obedient servants: your benevolence toward me, Most Illustrious Lord, over these three years has been of such a kind that I am not a little ashamed that I cannot be adequate to your generous liberality.
Accept therefore with goodwill, Most Illustrious Lord, whatever this little book may be, and allow something of splendor to be transferred to it from your most illustrious name. The memory of this and other benefits will remain with me and mine forever. May the heavenly powers grant that this and many more years pass happily for you.
Ingolstadt, the Kalends of January, 1632.
Your Most Illustrious Lordship’s most humble client,
Johann Geisler of Munich
Chapter One: On Nature
Thesis I
The word “Nature” and “Natural” are used in various senses. First, “Nature” signifies the creator of all things, following Augustine. Second, it signifies the essence or definition of a particular thing. Third, it signifies a force or intrinsic principle of motion. “Natural” in turn means: first, that which is non-free or necessary; second, that which is opposed to the supernatural; third, that which is non-violent and consonant with the inherent order of things; fourth, that which is non-artificial, found without the intervention of art. These brief notes on terms being made, we proceed to explain the matter itself.
Thesis III
Nature, taken in the last sense described above (for it is of this alone that we speak here), is defined by Aristotle (Physics 2, text 3) as “the principle and cause of motion and rest in that in which it is, per se, primarily, and not accidentally.” To understand the meaning of this definition, we explain it more fully, following the Coimbra commentators (Physics 2, q. 2, art. 1) and Mendoza (disp. 7, sect. 1).
First, “principle and cause” is placed as the genus. The sense is that nature is not just any origin of motion and rest, but one that truly and really causes and exerts influence. Thus Aristotle, for the sake of greater explanation, joined the remote genus to the more proximate one in this definition of nature.
Second, “of motion and rest”: by the term “motion” we understand not only local motion, but any physical or sensible change, whether it terminates in substance or accident, whether it is completed in a moment or over time. By “rest” we understand not merely the absence or negation of motion, but, as Mendoza and others rightly note, the permanence, retention, or quasi-possession of a natural terminus or perfection that has been attained.
Thesis IV
Third, “in that in which it is”: as if to say that nature, according to what was said just above, is indeed a cause of motion (and the same judgment applies to rest), but not of just any motion. Rather, it is the cause only of that motion which is received in the composite in which the nature itself inheres, as the cited authors rightly observe. Thus this clause restricts the previous one.
Fourth, “per se, primarily”: these particles are more correctly arranged in this order rather than the reverse, as the Coimbra commentators note following the Commentator, and as can be gathered from their very meaning. The sense is that nature belongs to the composite in which it inheres per se, that is, necessarily, and not in just any necessary way, but primarily, radically, or essentially, as Mendoza rightly explains. Finally, “not accidentally” is added only for the sake of clarity, since this clause could already be understood sufficiently from what was said, just as the clause “per se” could be understood from “primarily,” since whatever inheres in something essentially inheres in it per se and not accidentally.
Thesis V
From these considerations it is now easy to understand what the Coimbra commentators (Physics 2, q. 3, art. 2) and Mendoza teach: that there are only two natures to which the explained definition of Aristotle applies, namely Form and Matter, from which the physical composite arises. The composite itself therefore does not have the character of nature as here defined, as Aristotle himself clearly teaches (Physics 2, text 12). For after he had clearly enough taught that both Form and Matter are nature (though form more than matter), he adds: “That which is composed of these (namely form and matter) is not nature, but is from nature, as for example a human being.” He teaches the same more clearly in text 4, where he says: “For the subject is something, and nature is always in a subject.” As if to say, as the Coimbra commentators rightly note on this text, that nothing participates in the character of nature as defined above unless it is either a subject, like matter, or in a subject, like form. This truth is sufficiently demonstrated from the fact that a substantial composite is not an essential part of anything else, much less of itself, in which it might cause motion. Yet this is required for the character of nature, as is clear from its definition.
Thesis VI
From this it is further deduced that neither God nor the Aristotelian Intelligences have the character of nature. For these are not the principle of any physical sensible motion that would be received in a composite which they, as an essential part, would constitute. Nor does the objection of Murcia (Physics 2, D. 1, q. 2) have force, namely that God and the Angels, though they do not move themselves in the aforesaid manner, can nevertheless move bodies by a physical and highly sensible motion. For this does not suffice for the character of nature; rather, it is necessary that nature be able to cause sensible motion in the composite in which it inheres as a part. Hence Aristotle (Metaphysics 12, text 13) distinguishes nature from art chiefly in this: that art passes per se into external matter and moves things other than itself, while nature does not. And so, although motion can be called natural in various ways, only that motion is to be called strictly natural which proceeds from nature and is received in the composite in which the nature itself inheres as its subject. For this reason, neither the motion of fire upon water nor conversely that of water upon fire can be called natural.
Thesis VII
Moreover, we hold that the definition of nature applies not only to the constitutive parts of sublunary bodies, but also to those of celestial bodies. Thus not only forms but also celestial matter (even if, according to the truer opinion, it is of a different species from sublunary matter), and likewise the rational soul even insofar as it is rational, and in a word, any matter and substantial form whatsoever, whether of living or non-living things, is properly called nature. For from all of these, as from certain causes, whether active or passive, inhering per se and primarily in the composite, at least some sensible motion flows into the composite. Since the aforesaid definition of nature is a causal one, Mendoza (disp. 7, sect. 3) rightly advises that, just as the character of nature in general implies a certain transcendental relation to motion in general, so each particular nature is constituted by a similar order to motion in particular, since that force and formal character of being a principle or cause cannot otherwise be more conveniently understood or explained.
Thesis VIII
But since celestial bodies (except the Empyrean) never rest, and the entire globe of the earth, according to Psalm 103:5, “He established the earth upon its stability; it shall not be moved forever and ever,” is never moved from its place, authors dispute among themselves (as can be seen in the Coimbra commentators, Physics 2, q. 2, art. 2 & 3) whether and in what way these bodies are comprehended by the definition of nature. Hence some, following Pereira (bk. 7, ch. 10), want the particles “of motion and rest” to be taken collectively, not however with respect to individual bodies, but to all of them together, so that the sense is: although not in every individual body, yet in all of them taken collectively, nature causes both motion and rest. Others, following Murcia (Physics 2, disp. 1, q. 2), contend that the particle “and” should be taken not copulatively but disjunctively, so that the sense is: nature is in all and each body the principle of either motion or at least rest, if not of both. And thus neither heaven nor earth is to be excluded from Aristotle’s definition of nature.
Thesis IX
Either response is convenient; the latter seems more expeditious. But even if we granted that with respect to local motion, the aforesaid bodies do not participate in the character of nature, they would not on that account have to be cast out from the class of natural bodies. For as we noted above, in the definition of nature not only local motion but any alterative motion is understood, by reason of which, therefore, such bodies could have the character of nature. It may be added, as the Coimbra commentators note (loc. cit., art. 3, ad 1), that the earth at least moves according to its parts. And just as the heavens, when the tragedy of the world is finished and their nurturing action upon these lower things is no longer needed, will naturally come to rest, so conversely, the entire globe of the earth, if it were moved from its place by some force, would be restored to the same by a certain innate power.
Thesis X
There is also no small controversy concerning the aforesaid definition of nature, as the Coimbra commentators (loc. cit., q. 3) report: whether it comprehends only an active or only a passive principle of motion, that is, whether only form or only matter is comprehended by the definition of nature. But neither side proves anything for itself; rather, both confirm our own position, in which we have already established above (Thesis VII) that not only one but both, the active as well as the passive principle, have the character of nature. For as the Coimbra commentators rightly note (loc. cit., art. 1), the essence of any natural composite as such arises from natures, and for things consisting of nature it is no less natural to act than to be acted upon, and to be moved by oneself than to move oneself. Nor should anyone rightly infer from this, together with the opposing faction, that if matter too has the character of nature, then no motion would be violent for any composite. For even if this might be true with respect to matter considered precisely in itself, yet if the motion is compared to the whole composite, or to matter insofar as it already stands under some particular form, it cannot be true, since in this case matter, drawn as it were into the form’s camp, unwillingly receives and sustains motions contrary to the form.
Thesis XI
It remains for us to declare briefly in what way the definition of nature applies to the rational soul even insofar as it is rational. For insofar as it is rational, it does not seem to be a cause of sensible or natural motion, since it is itself immaterial and, as such, seems only to elicit and sustain acts of will and intellect, which do not fall under sense. But these objections are slight.
First, although the rational soul is spiritual, because it is essentially a proportionate act of matter for constituting some one per se composite, it is also, insofar as it is rational, the principle of certain sensible motions, such as laughter, articulate speech, and the like.
Second, the thoughts and volitions of the human mind, even though they are not sensible in themselves or intrinsically, can nevertheless be called sensible extrinsically and through another, namely through the phantasm and the sense, on which such actions depend in this life.
Furthermore, since, as can be gathered from Aristotle (De Anima 2, texts 36-37 and elsewhere), nearly all other vital motions and operations of a human being exist for the sake of the soul insofar as it is rational, the soul can also be called, as such, the principle and cause of all of them.
Chapter Two: On Art
Thesis XII
The word “Art,” as the Coimbra commentators observe (q. 1, Prooemium in Logic, art. 1), is used by Aristotle in three principal senses. First, most broadly, for every intellectual habit that attains the true, whether practical or speculative. So Aristotle in Metaphysics 1, bk. 1, ch. 1, near the end, calls the mathematical disciplines, which he elsewhere (Metaphysics 6, text 2) calls speculative, “arts.” Second, more strictly, for all and only practical kinds of knowledge, in which sense Aristotle seems to have used the term “art” in Ethics 1, ch. 1. Third, art in the proper and strict sense, following Aristotle (Ethics 6, ch. 4), is commonly defined as “a habit of making with true reason.”
“Habit” is said because art by its nature is a stable quality in the subject. “With true reason” means according to certain and infallible rules. “Of making,” that is, operating by passing into external matter, whether it leaves a work behind it (which some over-scrupulously require for art) or not. For Aristotle seems to have encompassed under the term “making” all those operations that pass into external matter, as John Sanchez rightly observes (q. 9, Prooemium in Logic) following St. Thomas (1.2, q. 57, art. 4). Yet with a certain primacy, Aristotle applies the name “making” to those operations that not only pass into external matter but also leave a work behind them, as is clear both from Magna Moralia 1, at the beginning of the last chapter, and from Ethics 6, ch. 5.
Thesis XIII
Art ordinarily operates in two ways, as the Coimbra commentators rightly suggest (Physics 2, ch. 5, q. 6, art. 2). The first is that by which it directs the locomotive powers of the artisan to the production of various and diverse local motions in distinct subjects. From these motions (whether they occur through conjoined instruments, such as the hands, feet, etc., or through separate ones, such as a pen, chisel, etc.) there results sometimes various melodies of voices and sounds, sometimes one or another appearance or figure of a thing, as is clear from the play of harpists and the workshops of sculptors.
The second mode is that by which art not only induces a certain harmony of sound or a figure of a thing, but so dexterously applies active agents to passive ones that, from such an artful combination, they afterward produce effects that, without that combination, they would never have produced separately. In this way, health is commonly produced by physicians and other various things by other artisans.
Thesis XIV
From these points it is easy to understand what Pereira (bk. 7, ch. 3) and the Coimbra commentators, as well as others, teach: that art, with respect to artifacts, is not per se a physical efficient principle, but only a moral or directive one. For since no intellectual habit physically produces anything outside of itself, art too, which, as we noted above, passes into external matter, is rightly shown to be not a physical but only a directive cause of its artifacts. And what we have just said of art must be understood, with the same and even greater right, of the artificial form, which is at most (and even then only in some artifacts) a modal entity, terminating quantity (which itself, according to the common opinion, has no external active power), and thus cannot be a physical principle of acting, as a “that which” agent.
Thesis XV
We say, however, that art cannot be a physical principle with respect to artifacts. For we do not deny that the practical judgments and knowledge of artistic rules, by which artful operations are directed, are physically produced by art together with the intellect. To form some concept of this matter, observe that any artisan, before he applies his hands and executive powers to the work, not only predestines the work to be made by an act of will, but first of all ordinarily conceives the work to be made, that is, fashions in the intellect a certain idea, likeness, or exemplar of it. This does not ordinarily happen, at least in the beginning, without more frequent cognitions of rules elicited by the intellect together with the habit of art, which we call practical judgments.
Thesis XVI
Now the Idea, speaking absolutely, according to which the artisan works, is nothing other than “a certain form which the effect imitates, from the intention of the agent who determines the end for himself,” as St. Thomas rightly defines it (De Veritate, q. 3, art. 1), and after him the Coimbra commentators and others.
It is called first a “form,” because although ideas often have the character of an informing form, they always at least have the character of a form that in some manner conforms the effect to itself. Hence it is next said, “which the effect imitates from the intention of the agent,” by which words it is indicated, first, that a certain similarity through imitation must exist between the effect and the idea, and second, it is also taught that not just any similarity suffices (such as one where some effect happens to conform to another purely by chance and accidentally), but that the similarity must be induced into the effect from the intention and purpose of the agent.
Thesis XVII
Hence if some Apelles, entirely ignorant of your appearance, who knew you neither by face nor by name, were to paint playfully with a brush and yet happen to express your face, you would not, by reason of such a painting, have been an idea for him.
Third, “who determines the end for himself” means an intellectual agent insofar as it is such, that is, insofar as it has freely appointed the end for itself by its own will. Hence you may gather that none of those agents operates according to an exemplar or from an idea which, although they produce an effect similar to themselves or fabricate something, do not appoint this as an end for themselves, but rather intend an end already fixed by the Author of nature. Thus when a lion begets a lion, a bee builds its cell, a bird builds its nest, etc., they do not operate from an idea in this sense.
Thesis XVIII
Furthermore, Suarez (Metaphysical Disputations 25, sect. 1, no. 2), following others after Seneca (Epistle 66), rightly teaches that there are, in general, two kinds of ideas: internal and external. The former is commonly called formal, the latter objective. The internal idea is nothing other than, as we have already suggested above, the image that the artisan fabricates for himself in his mind, so that he may conform the effect, to be produced externally, to it. The external idea is that model which the artisan sets before himself externally, so that he may fashion the work according to it.
To understand this matter more precisely, observe that in any artful operation depending on an idea, four concepts may especially be found: two objective and two formal.
Thesis XIX
The first objective concept is nothing other than the external idea just explained, commonly called the prototypon (which some render as “exemplar”). The first formal concept is nothing but the cognition of the foregoing, and therefore a concept of the prototype. The second objective concept is the work itself, to be fashioned in imitation of the exemplar, called by the Greeks ektypon and by the Latins exemplum. The last, that is the second formal concept, is nothing other than the concept of the ectype, by which the executive power of the artisan is more immediately directed to actually making the work.
Hence a considerable controversy arises among authors: does the character of “idea” properly belong to the second formal concept, or to the first objective one?
Thesis XX
Suarez (Metaphysical Disputations 25, sect. 1, no. 10) and Murcia (Physics 2, disp. 2, q. 2) recognize only the second formal concept as the idea. On the other hand, Scotus (Sentences 1, dist. 35, q. unica), Durand (ibid., dist. 69, q. 3, art. 3), and many others, as can be seen in the Coimbra commentators (Physics 2, ch. 7, q. 3, art. 2), hold only the first objective concept to be the idea.
Neither position satisfies us. Hence, following Valentia (1 p., disp. 1, q. 15, pt. 2, near the middle) and Lessius (bk. 5, On the Perfections of God, ch. 2, no. 10), we judge that the explained character of “idea” belongs in its own way to both of the aforesaid concepts, though more principally to the formal one.
Thesis XXI
For first, as the adversaries themselves admit, some ideas are external, others internal. Second, since the effect is ordinarily made not in imitation of the external alone, nor of the internal alone, but of both, neither one alone but both will have the character of a form which the effect imitates, and therefore both will be an idea. This is especially so since the artisan, looking to both and knowing the objective one as “that which” and the formal one at least as “that by which,” produces the effect. That the internal idea participates in the character of idea more than the external, however, may be gathered from the fact that it contributes more proximately and more to the production of the ideatum than does the external one. For the prototype alone does not seem to suffice for the actual direction of the artisan, whereas the formal concept of the ectype not infrequently guides the artisan without the prototype, as is evident in more skilled masters of art, who no longer, in the manner of beginners, set an external model before their eyes, but complete the work content with the concept of the ectype alone.
Thesis XXII
Following the earlier controversy about the idea, another dispute arises: to which genus of cause does the idea belong? Some want it to belong to the formal cause, others to the efficient, as can be seen in Suarez (loc. cit., sect. 2, from no. 7) and the Coimbra commentators (Physics 2, ch. 7, q. 4, art. 1) and others. We are more inclined to the opinion of those who refer the idea, or the exemplary cause, to the efficient cause, yet in such a way that they also want it to be reducible in its own manner to the formal cause.
This is both because the position seems more consistent with Aristotle and with reason. For although Aristotle (Physics 2, text 33) wants Polycletus to be a per accidens cause and the sculptor to be the per se efficient cause of a statue, the same Aristotle (ibid., text 28), in his enumeration of causes, conjoins the exemplary with the formal.
Thesis XXIII
Furthermore, although the artful agent is constituted and completed in its character as an active principle through the idea, proportionally to the way in which a natural agent is constituted and completed in its character as an active principle through its natural form, nevertheless, because Aristotle (Metaphysics 7, near the beginning, text 23) calls the idea a “form” and “the very whatness of the thing,” and because the idea not only inheres in the artisan’s intellect but also extrinsically affects the effect in the manner of a form (since it forms it after the fashion of a measure and norm), it may rightly be said that the idea participates not only in the character of efficient cause but also, in some way at least, in that of formal cause.
Thesis XXIV
Concerning the causality of the ideal cause, Rabe (Physics 2, tr. 6, q. 1, no. 65) seems to us to think rightly when he affirms that it consists in the very operation of the intellectual or artful agent, insofar as that operation proceeds from the exemplar which measures and directs it toward a certain end. For since the proper function of the exemplar is to form, by directing, an effect similar to itself, it is rightly said to be constituted in second act through that action, as through its causality, by which the effect proceeds actually regulated according to it. This causality, besides the one we have described, is no other.
Thesis XXV
It remains to gather from what has been said what the agreement and what the difference is between art and nature. Art therefore agrees with nature, as Pereira (bk. 7, ch. 2) and still more fully the Coimbra commentators rightly note, principally in the following respects:
- The works of nature, like the works of art, are made according to certain laws and in an orderly fashion. Hence certain philosophers, as Philo attests (On the Monarchy, bk. 3), called nature the art of God, and God the supreme artisan.
- Just as a natural agent produces an effect similar to itself by reason of the form by which it is constituted, so also the artisan fashions a work similar to the idea by which he is constituted as such an agent.
- Just as art cannot operate without its appropriate subject, so neither can nature operate without its own.
- Just as art advances gradually, proceeding from more imperfect to more perfect things, so does nature.
- Just as nature emulates divine art, so human art emulates nature as far as possible. Hence art has not unfittingly been called the divine exemplar of nature, while nature itself has been called the exemplum of the divine archetype and, at the same time, the exemplar of human art.
Thesis XXVI
Nature differs from art, however, in the following principal respects:
- Nature produces true things, while art per se produces only imitations of the true. Thus nature produces a real horse and a real lion, while the arts of painting, sculpture, etc., produce only images and statues of them. Hence some have called paintings “the dreams of the waking,” because in them not the things themselves but only images of things present themselves.
- Whenever art and nature concur in making some work, art has the character of a guide and rule, while nature has the character of that which is ruled and formed.
- Natural forms supervene upon being in potency, that is, upon matter; artificial forms supervene upon being in act, that is, upon the whole composite. Hence it is commonly said that art begins where nature leaves off.
- Nature pervades the innermost parts of its subject; art generally adheres only to the surface.
- Nature produces an effect similar to itself with respect to real being and also confers upon it the same power of producing. Art does not.
- Finally, to pass over other differences, nature is a physical and substantial principle of motion, essential to the composite that it moves; art is not, as is clear from the foregoing.
Thesis XXVII
At last, a certain dispute is still commonly agitated among authors in this matter: whether art, by the application of active agents to passive ones, can produce true gold. Some affirm it, others deny it, as can be seen at length in Pereira (bk. 8, ch. 20-21), Del Rio (bk. 1, Disquisitions, ch. 5, q. 1, from sect. 2), and others. We approve the opinion of the Coimbra commentators and of many others cited by them (Physics 2, ch. 1, q. 7, art. 2). Hence, although it is extremely difficult and therefore exceedingly rare for true gold to be actually produced by the art of alchemy, we consider it more probable that it can, absolutely speaking, be produced.
The reason for the first part of our assertion is efficacious: experience, and the futile attempts of many at making gold, and frequent fraud. Indeed, certain magnates, while expecting gold to be made by alchemists, have spent a great deal of gold, with certain swindlers selling them fraud in place of art. Among these, Marcus Bragadino the Venetian was not the least, who, as Del Rio attests, in the year 1591, after he had publicly confessed his fraud (namely that he had melted gold from gold powders that he had mixed with charcoal dust), was put to death in Munich. Hence Valentia rightly admonishes, with the Coimbra commentators, that alchemy, as a pursuit pernicious to the Republic for various reasons, is not to be considered universally licit.
Thesis XXVIII
The latter part of our assertion is demonstrated as follows. First, no effective argument can prove its impossibility. Second, other even nobler effects than gold can be produced by the art of applying active agents to passive ones. Thus bees are born from the suffocated carcass of a young bull, and toads from the boiled remains of a duck exposed to the sun. More examples of this kind can be seen in Del Rio (bk. 1, Disquisitions, ch. 5, sect. 3). Third, absolutely speaking, the causes by which gold is ordinarily smelted within the bowels of the earth by the common order of nature also seem capable of being conjoined above the earth by the art of man. Fourth, on the testimony of Del Rio (loc. cit., q. 1, sect. 4) and of many other trustworthy men, it is very credible that true gold has in fact already been produced by art at Rome by Arnold of Villanova.
Chapter Three: On Magic
Thesis XXIX
Magic, taken in the general sense, is rightly defined by Del Rio (bk. 1, Disquisitions, ch. 2) from the common opinion as: “An art or faculty which, by created and not supernatural power, produces certain marvels and unusual things, the cause of which surpasses the sense and common understanding of men.”
“Art” is said in such a broad sense as to encompass any knowledge or operation, whether angelic or human, liberal or mechanical, true or charlatanic, virtuous or superstitious. Thus this particle serves as the genus, while the remaining clauses serve as the differentia.
“By created, not supernatural power, produces marvels and unusual things”: here, first, by “power” is understood whatever virtue or thing is applied to produce the effect, whether it belongs to the thing applied or to the person applying it. Second, miracles, which are the work of God alone and His saints, are excluded. Third, ordinary and commonplace effects, which have nothing of wonder about them, are rejected.
Hence it is finally added, “the cause of which surpasses the sense and common understanding of men,” to indicate that the causes of the things produced by magic ought to be known only to the wise and to those learned above the common crowd, and therefore to very few.
Thesis XXX
Of magic thus universally taken, various authors list various species, as can be seen in Pereira (On Magic, ch. 9) and Del Rio (Disquisitions, bk. 1, ch. 2). To treat them all would be lengthy. The division of magic that Pereira suggests in his preface to his book on magic and treats in chapter 9 seems more expeditious to us: magic is divided into natural and superstitious (or diabolical).
Natural magic is nothing other than a certain art which, by human industry and through natural causes, produces marvels. Or, as Lessius (On Justice and Law, bk. 2, ch. 44, dub. 4) puts it: a method of producing marvels through natural causes, without the aid of a demon. Or, as Del Rio (loc. cit., ch. 3) describes it more fully, following Psellus (On Demons) and Proclus (On Magic): “A more exact knowledge of the secrets of nature, by which, having observed the course and influence of the heavens and stars, and the sympathies and antipathies of individual things, things are applied to things at the proper time, place, and manner, and by this means certain wondrous things are accomplished, which to those ignorant of their causes seem like prestidigitation or miracles.”
Thesis XXXI
Doctors commonly teach, following St. Thomas (Summa Theologiae 1, q. 94, art. 3), that this magic was infused into Adam at his first creation by God among the other natural virtues, and that he afterward transmitted it to remote posterity through his sons and grandsons. Hence, although this magic is not evil per se, as Pereira rightly notes (On Magic, ch. 14), being the noblest part of physics, medicine, and mathematical learning, and therefore most worthy of human study and knowledge, it is nevertheless, as Lessius rightly cautions, accidentally dangerous, especially for youth. For it vehemently attaches the curious human mind to useless and curious things, and gradually lures it toward superstitious magic: as the desire for knowledge grows, what one cannot penetrate by oneself, one is driven to learn by any means from any source whatsoever. Hence, as the same author rightly observes, the greatest magicians always take care to cover all their doings with the cloak of natural magic.
Thesis XXXII
From this, Lessius rightly notes that books teaching natural magic are rightly suspected and ought to be avoided by studious youth. Indeed, the public teaching of magic may justly be prohibited, as Pereira observes, if the ruin of some might thereby be feared, given the human propensity always to tend toward the worse. He rightly adds that the situation is different with medicine, whose use is utterly necessary for the human race, while the abuse that might occur is more manifest than could easily be concealed.
Thesis XXXIII
Superstitious, Black, or Diabolical Magic, which the Greeks call goeteia, is defined by Lessius (loc. cit., no. 2) as “a certain method of producing marvels through signs with the aid of demons.” Del Rio (bk. 1, Disquisitions, ch. 2) defines it as “an art or faculty by which, through some pact entered into with demons, certain marvels surpassing the common understanding of men are produced.”
For the entire force of this magic consists in either an express or at least a tacit pact with a demon, as Del Rio copiously demonstrates (bk. 2, Disquisitions, q. 4). Hence Lessius (loc. cit.) also says that just as natural magic uses natural causes, so superstitious magic uses signs, which are moral causes. For by these signs, by virtue of the pact entered into, the demon is induced to do what the magician requests, and the signs themselves seem to produce the effects.
Furthermore, the Platonic magicians especially have mentioned a certain third kind of magic, as can be seen in Del Rio (bk. 2, Disquisitions, q. 1), which they called “white” in Latin and theurgia in Greek.
Thesis XXXIV
The aforesaid magicians wanted their theurgia to be licit, on the grounds that it was communicated to man either immediately by God alone or mediately through good angels, whom they called “spirits” par excellence. But as Del Rio rightly notes (loc. cit.), this “white magic” is fictitious and not at all different from black magic, but is merely disguised under a more honorable name for the ruin of the unwary. For God neither by Himself nor through good angels ever involves Himself in magical operations more than He concurs with all other things as First Cause.
This is made evident from the fact that this supposedly “white” magic is experienced to be no less harmful to men, through thefts, murders, adulteries, and other such crimes, than black magic. Moreover, as Del Rio rightly observes from both canon law and the Articles of Paris, it is erroneous to postulate certain “good demons” who are neither damned nor blessed, such as the patrons of white magic recognize. Thus beyond natural magic and superstitious magic, no third kind remains.
Thesis XXXV
Nevertheless, as we have already noted above, various species are grouped under both kinds. We shall set forth the principal ones, from which the knowledge of the others will not be difficult.
Natural magic is divided by Del Rio (bk. 1, Disquisitions, ch. 3, after the beginning, and at the beginning of ch. 4) into operative and divinatory. Divinatory magic, as befits its name, is that which is occupied with conjecturing hidden and future things. Operative magic is that which produces rare and commonly unusual effects.
Not inconveniently, Pereira (loc. cit., ch. 9) also distinguishes natural magic into physical and mathematical. Physical magic is that which deals with the hidden virtues of natural things, so that through the application of active agents to passive ones it produces true but marvelous effects, marvelous because the reasons for their causes are commonly unknown. In this way we sometimes see roses, grapes, and other such fruits produced out of season in the depth of winter. Mathematical magic is that which, by knowledge solely or at least principally of mathematical things, produces certain marvelous and unusual effects. In this way, through the work of Archimedes, the dove of Archytas, and other such unusual things were fashioned.
Thesis XXXVI
Del Rio (bk. 1, ch. 2) divides demonic magic into four principal species: magic (in the specific and strict sense, which claims for itself the name of the genus), divination, maleficium, and vain observance (nugatory magic).
- Magic in the strict sense is that by which, through mere but culpable curiosity, without any intention of benefiting or harming others, extraordinary and unusual effects or knowledge are sought from an evil demon.
- Divination is that part of magic by which future, past, or present things that are deeply secret and hidden are inquired into with the aid of a demon.
- Maleficium (sorcery) is a faculty by which magicians either seek power from an evil spirit to do harm, or, if they are already equipped with such power by the evil demon, use it to the detriment of others.
- Vain observance (nugatory magic) is that which those who are equipped with it, or seek to be equipped, employ not only without harm but even for the good of others.
Thesis XXXVII
More minute subdivisions of superstitious magic can be found in Pereira (loc. cit., ch. 9) and St. Thomas (Summa Theologiae 2.2, q. 95, art. 3). However, the division that Azor (bk. 9, ch. 23) presents seems still more celebrated than others, in which magic is divided into prestidigitatory, venefic (enchanting), cabalistic, and Pythagorean.
- Prestidigitatory magic (which some call by the appropriated generic name goeteia) is that by which, with the aid of demons, things are made to appear to the eyes of onlookers other than they are.
- Venefic or incantatory magic is that which, by certain charms, fumigations, unctions, potions, etc., seems to produce certain marvels, which, however, the demon produces when these are employed as signs.
- Cabalistic magic is that which pretends that in Hebrew vowel points, accents, breathings, and names (imposed upon all things by Adam from God according to the properties of each thing), there lies hidden a most profound and secret doctrine signifying things. So that if anyone were to thoroughly perceive the force of these names, nothing would be hidden from him, but he would possess, like a lord of nature, all things obedient to himself.
- Pythagorean magic, which, as Azor attests, seems to have borrowed this name from its first author, is that which teaches that a certain hidden kinship exists between names in general and the natures, powers, and properties of the things they signify. So that if anyone were to penetrate this kinship with exact knowledge, he would be able to produce utterly marvelous and unusual things by names alone.
But no one who has even the rudimentary logic of a beginner fails to see the ridiculous and utterly vain fallacy of this magic, as well as of cabalistic magic, who knows that letters and names are a human invention and therefore signify by convention. Thus the notion that the natural properties of things are contained by virtue in their names can be nothing other than an insane fabrication of idle men.
Thesis XXXIX
So much for the division of both kinds of magic; it is not worth pursuing further. Therefore we now pronounce, briefly, what each kind can and cannot do.
If, then, as we suggested above in Thesis XIII, they employ only locomotive powers, then neither of them can produce anything besides various local positions, the consequent variety of figures, impulse, various sounds arising from the collision of bodies with one another, and a few other things that can follow from these. But if they apply active agents to passive ones, then again neither kind of magic can produce any effects other than those which are contained in the potency of the causes applied to one another.
For since neither magic per se physically produces anything, but only by directing locomotive powers and their actions through an idea, or by conjoining certain natural causes with one another in order to produce a certain effect, it is clear that neither kind of magic will physically produce anything that was not already contained in the causes it employed. And so you have, in summary, what both kinds of magic can and cannot do.
Thesis XL
But to explain somewhat more explicitly what superstitious magic can and cannot do, observe from Del Rio (bk. 2, q. 8), Pereira (On Exodus ch. 7, Disp. 4, and On Magic, ch. 6), and others, that the evil demon has a twofold external or transitive action.
One is immediate, such as local motion and, as Vasquez and others probably teach, the production of impulse.
The other is mediate, namely that which customarily follows local motion, by which active agents are applied to passive ones. For the demon, that arch-craftsman, who most intimately knows the natures and properties of natural things, is able and accustomed to gather from diverse places various natural agents and to combine them so dexterously with respect to place, time, and manner of acting, that effects arise from them which the operation of nature alone would never have produced, had not the evil demon assisted it with his artful direction.
Thesis XLI
From this, anyone may now easily understand that superstitious magicians, by reason of the diverse local motions effected by the demon (or rather, that the demons themselves), can accomplish very many things that exceed the ordinary effects of nature and the common understanding of men.
First, they can send a great quantity of fire, transported from the concave of the moon or from elsewhere, to devastate cities and kingdoms. They can also excite winds that topple houses, as we read they did in Job 1, and stir up terrible storms on land and sea. To these agents should probably be referred those two marvelous jars which Apollonius, according to Philostratus (Life of Apollonius, bk. 3, ch. 3), saw among the Indians, which when opened caused rain and winds, and when closed, calmed them.
Thesis XLII
Second, they can transport large bodies from one place to another in almost an instant, and therefore most easily convey witches through the air in reality. They can also suddenly remove present things from the eyes of onlookers, etc. Thus Christ the Lord, in Matthew 4, is read to have been placed upon the pinnacle of the temple and carried to a very high mountain by the devil. Church annals narrate something similar about Simon Magus, who was dashed to the ground by the prayers of St. Peter.
In much the same way, when pagan histories sometimes record that oxen, men, etc., flew through the air, or that it rained great stones, oxen, and calves, this can be understood to have happened in this manner. Similarly, Apollonius, when he was in the presence of the Emperor Domitian, suddenly vanished from everyone’s sight. And Gyges, if we wish to accept it as true, can be believed to have made himself invisible in this way.
Thesis XLIII
Third, they can make statues or any other lifeless things appear to walk by themselves. Thus, according to Philostratus, at a banquet of the gymnosophist Iarchas in the presence of Apollonius of Tyana, it is credible that certain tripods walked by themselves and that certain golden or bronze cup-bearers performed their duties, serving dishes and cups at the feast in their proper place and time.
Fourth, by means of local motion, they can make statues, brute animals, etc., appear to speak in the manner of humans, by forming articulate sound or speech similar to human speech, within or near those bodies that they thus render seemingly loquacious. In this way, we should understand what Valerius Maximus (bk. 1, ch. on prodigies) relates concerning the image of Juno Moneta and of Fortuna Muliebris: the former, when playfully asked by a soldier whether it wished to be taken from Veii to Rome, answered that it did; the latter testified to the Roman matrons, by whom it had been consecrated together with its temple, that it had been properly seen by them and properly consecrated.
Thesis XLIV
Fifth, they can either merely display the forms and figures of exotic goods and merchandise, or, if they please, actually bring things transported from elsewhere and make them physically present. Thus Philostratus (Life of Apollonius, bk. 4, ch. 5) records that a certain Lamia, who wished to ruin the young Menippus by her allurements, displayed to him empty phantoms of every kind of wealth and delicacy.
Also, although others think differently, it is credible, as Lessius attests (On Justice and Law, bk. 2, ch. 44, dub. 3, no. 18), that the rods of the Egyptian magicians mentioned in Exodus 7:12 were converted into serpents. For the evil demon could not have applied such powerful natural causes to them that they would have been transformed in so short a time; rather, he seems to have substituted serpents in place of the rods that he had removed. In the same way, St. Augustine (City of God, bk. 18, ch. 18) teaches that the companions of Diomedes were converted into birds, and Iphigenia into a deer.
Sixth, they can divide river waters and drive them back against their nature to the source from which they flowed. In this way, we should understand what Pliny (Natural History, bk. 2, ch. 103) relates when he says that rivers flowed backward in the last years of Nero’s principate.
Thesis XLV
Seventh, they can assume various bodies of various shapes and move them, putting them on like garments, and so manage them that the animals or even the humans whose remains they have put on, or whose likenesses they have formed from air or some other material, seem to be present in person.
Here observe, first, that although God rarely seems to permit demons to represent the persons of innocent humans in their assemblies (so that Del Rio, bk. 2, Disquisitions, ch. 12, no. 5, says it was unheard of to him), it is nevertheless not improbable that this can sometimes happen, since many trustworthy reports, as Tanner attests, confirm that it has in fact already occurred. God may be deemed to permit this either for the punishment of other sins or for the greater praise of patience.
Observe, second, that it is more probable that the fraud can always be detected in such phantasmic bodies, at least by touch if not by other senses. Hence Christ the Lord, to prove to His disciples that He was a true man and not a phantom, said in Luke 24:39: “Touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see me having.”
Thesis XLVIII
Demons cannot, therefore:
According to the more common opinion of theologians following St. Thomas (Summa Theologiae 1, q. 114, art. 4) and St. Augustine (On the Trinity, bk. 3, ch. 7), produce perfect animals, unless they steal seed from elsewhere and insert it by some means into a maternal womb, so that in the succession of time, in the proper place and in the usual manner, the seed may develop into a fetus and approach birth. On this see Del Rio (bk. 2, ch. 15) more fully, following St. Thomas (1 p., q. 51, art. 3, ad 6).
They cannot overthrow the universe, move whole principal parts of the world from their places, stop the heavens, create a vacuum, make bodies penetrate each other, or act at a distance. For since most of these things would tend to disturb the natural order of the universe, the Author of that order is rightly believed to have reserved this to Himself alone. The Holy Fathers and Scholastics confirm this, as Del Rio attests (bk. 2, q. 10), from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews 2: “He did not subject the world to the angels,” etc.
Thesis XLIX
- Demons cannot, by themselves immediately, produce any form, whether substantial or accidental (except for local position and probably also impulse), in bodies. So Suarez teaches (Metaphysical Disputations 35, sect. 6), following St. Thomas (1 p., q. 110, art. 2). Since demons neither have infinite power of acting nor, like the rational soul, are by their nature forms of bodies (being substances abstracted from every essential ordering to matter), they do not seem to have the power of immediately altering matter by themselves.
However, because it is established from the Scriptures and other approved histories that bodies can be moved locally by them, we judge it rightly inferred that they can at least produce local position and probably also impulse ordered to local position.
Demons cannot from any thing immediately make any other thing, nor produce any effect by any instrument or cause whatsoever, nor accomplish anything in however short or equal a time, nor truly or intrinsically transform one body into another (for example, a man into a cat, dog, etc.). And therefore transformations of this sort, which we sometimes hear or read were accomplished by the work of magicians, are to be considered illusory, as Del Rio (bk. 2, Disquisitions, q. 18) and others teach at greater length.
Finally, demons cannot recall the dead to life, certainly and infallibly predict future contingent events that depend on human free will, nor certainly know the free dispositions of the will or the operations of the intellect. Yet from changes of countenance, the darting of the eyes, acts of the imagination, etc., they can most sagaciously divine about these matters. But brevity forbids treating these and many other things of this kind.
Thesis L
It would remain for us to overturn the foundations, or rather the fictions, of magicians upon which they are accustomed to build their frauds and deceptions, which would be very easy. But since the narrow limits of these pages refuse this, we shall be content with indicating in one or two words by what method the effects of natural and superstitious magic can and should be distinguished.
Most briefly, therefore, following Del Rio (bk. 3, q. 5): Where neither the power of miracle, nor of nature, nor of artful skill is found, a pact with the devil is present.
But because this dictum is obscure due to its excessive brevity, I explain it somewhat more fully, following the same author, from three principal heads: from the cause, from the condition of the action, and from the effect itself.
First, from the cause: whenever the cause is judged by the prudent to be plainly inadequate for producing the effect; or if the demon himself is invoked to do this or that; or if prayers are employed in which foreign, senseless, incoherent, and even false words are mixed in (such as about various supposed illnesses of Christ the Lord and the Blessed Virgin, etc.); or when, contrary to the customary practice of the Church, marvelous characters, figures, bindings, etc., are used: there is a certain sign of superstition.
Second, from the condition of the action: whenever such operations have annexed conditions and circumstances that remove them from the ordinary course of nature. For example, if many miles are covered in the briefest time; or a sick person, horse, or collapsing mountain is instantly stopped by mere touch; or if you here stab an image of Socrates, and he at the same time drops dead in Rome; or if you here bind a staff or dagger, and a wound inflicted by it is cured in Munich, etc.: again there is an evident indication of magic.
Third, from the effect itself: whenever the effects themselves, in their very substance, exceed all natural industry and power (such as the restoration of life or the restoration of whole limbs, etc.), and in such a case or similar ones, no manifest holiness of the person working, nor outstanding goodness of the end to which the effects are directed (such as the great gain of souls or the good of the Christian commonwealth) vindicates these effects as coming from heaven: hold for certain that the deceptions of evil demons lurk behind them.
All things to the greater glory of God.
Censors’ Approvals
This Philosophical Disputation on Nature, Art, and Magic, because it contains nothing contrary to orthodox doctrine and treats most useful matter for many in a succinct and vigorous manner, is most worthy of being printed and examined publicly.
So I judge,
Georgius Liprandus, of the Society of Jesus, Ordinary Professor of Sacred Theology and present Dean.
These theses teach both clearly and learnedly what the difference is between the true and the false arts of the demon, and usefully and prudently caution lest the candor of good minds be led into black fraud and error. Therefore I deem them most worthy of the light of publication.
Petrus Hildebrandt, Ordinary Professor of the Sacred Languages and Mathematics, in place of the Reverend and Distinguished Dean.
Congratulatory Poems
To His Most Beloved Brother, Champion of Magic
You who know how Mycale’s magic and Circe’s enchantments drive wheels and chariots, and how rooftops are assailed on a cloven horse; when the horned silences of the Moon are retarded, and the nocturnal cart yokes the hag owls; this judge can discern, what a paradox! Flee hence, you creatures of darkness; hence, far away, shadow of the Styx.
Forbear, learned critics and logicians of wisdom, if my little vessel esteems this fraternal work. Never has there come forth a book more worthy (I think) of beholding the light than yours.
Composed by Francisco and Ignatius König, brothers.
To the Same Most Learned Defender
In your theses, Nature is joined with Art, And nothing could be more learned than this and that. You probe Nature so skillfully, And this and that most cunningly.
What magic powers the Orcian Birth-goddess wields, You discuss both truly and aptly.
Let whatever the masked power of Dis pours forth, Whatever malignant wickedness possesses, It shall not prevail to overturn the laws of Nature Which this thesis defends. Nor shall the magician henceforth easily hide his secret arts; His art is mocked by this art of yours.
Composed out of kinship by Jacob Pirchinger, Student of Medicine.
To the Same Most Beloved Kinsman, Champion of Magic
What fierce Medea mixed you Stygian waters? By whose shades are you driven to infernal caves? Who taught you to summon the cohorts of Phlegethon? And to add pitchforks to nocturnal birds?
I think the artisan of a thousand worlds. But is he black or white? If you flee either, kinsman, you will be wise.
Ignatius Widman