There are
many Alberts in history--the Good, the Just, the Faithful--but there is
only one we call "Magnus" and he richly deserved the name. What is his
record? Why do we hold his name in reverence today?
Albertus Magnus was an encyclopaedic student and author, who took all
knowledge for his province. His great work and his great ambition was to
interpret Aristotle to his generation. Before his day, the Stagirite was
known only in part, but he put within the reach of his contemporaries
the whole science of Aristotle, and imbibed no small part of his spirit.
He recognized the importance of the study of nature, even of testing
it by way of experiment, and in the long years that had elapsed since
Theophrastus no one else, except Dioscorides, had made so thorough
a study of botany. His paraphrases of the natural history books
of Aristotle were immensely popular, and served as a basis for all
subsequent studies. Some of his medical works had an extraordinary
vogue, particularly the "De Secretis Mulierum" and the "De Virtutibus
Herbarum," but there is some doubt as to the authorship of the first
named, although Jammy and Borgnet include it in the collected editions
of his works. So fabulous was his learning that he was suspected of
magic and comes in Naude's list of the wise men who have unjustly
been reputed magicians.
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