Abstract
This chapter describes Bacon’s central thesis about the ability of alchemy to prolong human life: that alchemy can create a body of equal complexion, or a corpus equale, in which the four elements, air, water, earth, and fire, are in perfect proportion by strength, and thus have no action on each other. Bacon wrote that according to Aristotle, the equality of elements in a body meant that there would be no action of one element upon the other, thus making the body incorruptible. Bacon believed that alchemy could teach a person how to make such a corpus equale, which could then pass its incorruptibility on to a human patient, using the multiplication of species. The corpus equale would balance the humors (blood, phlegm, bile, and melancholy) in the patient’s body, giving the patient an equal complexion of humors, approximating the resurrection body. Finally, Bacon believed a medicine made from such a corpus equale worked through the multiplication of species, that is, by using its virtue to enact a change in the potentiality of the matter forming the patient’s body.
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Notes
- 1.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 6, 211 (624).
- 2.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 6, 212 (624).
- 3.
Moureau, “Elixir atque fermentum,” 305; Allen, “Roger Bacon’s Medical Alchemy,” 164.
- 4.
Pliny the Elder, Historia naturalium, 22:53. The reference is as follows: “He [Pollio Romulus] was more than a century old when Augustus, now in Heaven, who was his host, asked him what was the chief means by which he had kept such vigor of mind and body. His reply was “by honey wine within and by oil without.”
- 5.
Bacon, Liber sex scientiarum, 182. This story is also found in the Epistola and De retardatione accidentium senectutis. See Bacon, Epistola, Chapter 7, 539; and Little, De retardatione accidentium senectutis, 3–4. Pliny also wrote about a race of Ethiopians who lived in caves and ate serpents, but this is not discussed in connection with the prolongatio vitae.
- 6.
Bacon, Secretum secretorum, 24; Bacon, Epistola, Chapter 7, 539; Bacon, Liber sex scientiarum, 182; Bacon, Opus tertium, Chapter 112, 872–4. For more on Artephius, see Nicola Polloni, “A Matter of Philosophers and Spheres: Medieval Glosses on Artephius’ Keys of Wisdom,” Ambix 67/2, (2020): 135–52.
- 7.
Bacon, Epistola, Chapter 7, 540; Bacon, Liber sex scientiarum, 182.
- 8.
Newman, “The Philosophers’ Egg,” 77–8.
- 9.
Moureau, “Elixir atque fermentum,” 305. This is in opposition to Jabir, who held that gold did not have a corpus equale, just a specific proportion of qualities that made it incorruptible.
- 10.
Bacon, Liber sex scientiarum, 183; Bacon, Opus minus, 363 and 370. Of the two pairs, cold and hot are stronger and superior to wet and dry.
- 11.
Moureau, “Elixir atque fermentum,” 317–18; Paravicini Bagliani, “Ruggero Bacone e l’alchimia di lunga vita,” 39.
- 12.
Bacon, Reg. Lat. 1317, fols. 126v-127r.
- 13.
Bacon, Opus minus, 368.
- 14.
Bacon, Liber sex scientiarum, 183; Bacon, Communia naturalium, 79. In the Communia naturalium, Bacon wrote that corruption is a byproduct of a passive principle, not an active one.
- 15.
Bacon, Reg. Lat. 1317, fols. 126v-128r.
- 16.
Bacon, Opus minus, 370.
- 17.
Bacon, Opus minus, 369. Unde Averoys arguit ibi contra Galienum, qui posuit in homine aliquo complexionem aequalem.
- 18.
Bacon, Reg. Lat. 1317, fol. 127v. Complexio vero equalis ad iustitiam est illa que debetur homini secundum proportionem sue nature specifice ut Avicenna dicit primo artis medicine et hanc solam concedit posse repperiri in homine et omnem aliam excludit ab hoc mundo.
- 19.
Bacon, Reg. Lat. 1317, fol. 126v.
- 20.
Bacon, Liber sex scientiarum, 184; Bacon, Opus minus, 368.
- 21.
Bacon, Reg. Lat. 1317, fol. 127v.
- 22.
Bacon wrote that gold is equal in either the tenth or the fourth grade, but it is more proper to talk of human complexion in four grades. See Bacon, Reg. Lat. 1317, fol. 126v.
- 23.
Bacon, Liber sex scientiarum, 184; Bacon, Reg. Lat. 1317, fol. 127v.
- 24.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 6, 214–5 (627).
- 25.
Bacon, Communia naturalium, 398–401.
- 26.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 4, 377 (392). In the Centiloquium, Ptolemy wrote that the stars are different from each other.
- 27.
Scholastic-Aristotelian Philosophy taught that there were six active qualities: the four elemental qualities (hot, cold, wet, and dry), and two motive qualities (heaviness and lightness). As active qualities, these six can act as both formal and efficient causes. All other qualities derive from these active qualities. Maier, On the Threshold of Exact Science, 44.
- 28.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 4, 377 (392). Saturn is cold and dry, Mars is hot and dry, and Jupiter and Venus are humid. In the Communia naturalium, Bacon wrote that both Jupiter and Venus are hot and humid. Bacon, Communia naturalium, 269. Mercury does not have a fixed composition, and instead takes on the characteristics of whatever planet(s) with which it is in conjunction. The Sun is hot and dry, and the moon is cold and humid, but the sun’s heat is generative, not corruptive, unlike that of Mars.
- 29.
Bacon, Communia naturalium, 397. Consequenter queritur an stelle omnes differant specie sicut numero, et ostenditur quod sic.
- 30.
Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, Book 1, Chapter 5.
- 31.
“The forms of the intelligences and of the heavenly bodies completely exhaust the potentiality of matter; consequently, the intelligences and the heavenly bodies are incorruptible and not subject to coming into being and passing away.” Crowley, Roger Bacon, 101–2 and 122. Even Galen believed that there were different types of equality. See Kaye, A History of Balance, 208.
- 32.
Bacon, Opus tertium, Chapter 78, 666–8.
- 33.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 4, 393 (408–9); Bacon, Opus tertium, Chapter 76, 658. Bacon took this from Ptolemy’s Centoliquium, among other sources.
- 34.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 4, 384 (399).
- 35.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 4, 398–9 (414). Bacon frequently referenced this idea of a diseased vision. Lepers are able to infect others with leprosy by looking at them, especially if they desire to infect others, because the power of the rational soul amplifies the effects of their contagion (there is a more vigorous multiplication of species). Additionally, menstruating women can destroy mirrors by looking at them. See Bacon, Opus maius, Part 4, 398 (414).
- 36.
Fire sends out its species to wood, which then itself becomes fire. Bacon, Opus maius, Part 5, 43 (462).
- 37.
Allen, “Roger Bacon’s Medical Alchemy”, 159–174. For more on the history of species in the late Middle Ages, see Katherine H. Tachau, Vision and Certitude in the Age of Ockham: Optics, Epistemology, and the Foundations of Semantics, 1250–1345 (New York: Brill, 1988).
- 38.
Lindberg, Roger Bacon’s Philosophy of Nature, Introduction. Though De multiplicatione specierum appears to have been written in the late 1250s or early 1260s, Bacon continued to incorporate the doctrines held within it for the rest of his life. Discussions also appear in the Communia naturalium, Opus maius, Opus tertium, De speculis comburentibus, and Compendium studii theologiae.
- 39.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 5, 52 (470).
- 40.
Bacon, De multiplicatione specierum, Part 1, 7.
- 41.
Maier, On the Threshold of Exact Science, 44.
- 42.
Crowley, Roger Bacon, 103–11. In the case of things containing successive forms, like the human soul, Bacon did not think that the lower forms were replaced by the subsequent higher ones, but that all the forms coexisted.
- 43.
Lindberg, Roger Bacon’s Philosophy of Nature, xliv. Bacon borrowed from a number of sources, both Aristotelian, Neo-Platonic, Arabic, and Latin.
- 44.
Lindberg, Roger Bacon’s Philosophy of Nature, xlv. al-Kindi’s theory of rays has been treated with great detail in Pinella Travaglia. Magic, Causality, and Intentionality: The Doctrine of Rays in al-Kindi. SISMEL: Edizioni del Galluzzo. 1999. Al-Kindi himself was influenced by a mix of Eastern and Western sources.
- 45.
Travaglia, Magic, Causality, and Intentionality, 73. Al-Kindi quantified the strength of drugs through degrees, or the quantitative relationship of the opposing qualities (i.e. the degree is the proportion of hot to cold).
- 46.
Bacon was one of the leading authors in the Latin West on the multiplication of species. See David C. Lindberg, “Roger Bacon on Light, Vision, and the Universal Emanation of Force,” in Roger Bacon and the Sciences: Commemorative Essays, edited by Jeremiah Hackett. (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 243–76; Lindberg, Roger Bacon’s Philosophy of Nature, Introduction.
- 47.
Lindberg, “Roger Bacon on Light”, 246.
- 48.
Bacon, De multiplicatione specierum, Part 1, 47. If a species is naturally produced from a natural agent, then it must also be generated out of the potentiality of matter.
- 49.
Bacon, De multiplicatione specierum, Part 1, 45–7; Allen, “Roger Bacon’s Medical Alchemy”, 165.
- 50.
The notion that rays are corporeal is also found in al-Kindi’s De aspectibus. See Travaglia, Magic, Causality, and Intentionality, Chapter 3.
- 51.
Bacon, De multiplicatione specierum, Part 3, 180. Non poterit hec species habere aliam naturam corporalem a medio distinctam. Et hoc certum est per hoc, quod effectus completus similis agenti nomine et diffinitione non habet novam dimensionem corporalem, sed illam que fuit medii sive corporis in quo generatur talis effectus completus quando agens invalescit super ipsum et tollit naturam specificam eius, de cuius potentia educit illum effectum completum.
- 52.
Bacon, De multiplicatione specierum, Part 3, 180. Sed est una dimensio et unus locus quibus unum corpus principaliter correspondet, scilicet ipsum medium, assimilatum tamen agenti per speciem eius corporalem incompletam; unde est corpus in actu distinctum; et ideo est corporale in corpore actualiter existens.
- 53.
Bacon’s insistence that species are corporeal is repeated by Mark Smith. See A. Mark Smith, “Alhacen’s Theory of Visual Perception: A Critical Edition, with English Translation and Commentary, of the First Three Books of Alhacen’s “De aspectibus,” the medieval Latin version of Ibn al-Haytham’s “Kitab al-Manazir:” Vol. I.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, Vol. 91:4 (2001): lxxxviii.
- 54.
Bacon considered light to be material as well. Bacon believed species are corporeal when they exist in corporeal things—this was his way of explaining corporeal species in the incorporeal intellect. This is most likely due to the fact that species have no existence outside the medium. See Tachau, Vision and Certitude in the Age of Ockham, 15, 22–23. Leen Spruit also says that it is a logical fallacy for Bacon to say that the species are corporeal but can also enter the spiritual soul, although he is in fact arguing against Tachau. See Leen Spruit, Species Intelligibilis from Perception to Knowledge, Vol. I. Classical Roots and Medieval Discussions (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 154. See also George Molland, “Roger Bacon’s Corpuscular Tendencies (and some of Grosseteste’s too)”, in Late Medieval and Early Modern Corpuscular Matter Theories, edited by Christoph Luthy, John E. Murdoch, and William R. Newman (Leiden: Brill, 2001).
- 55.
Burke’s translation of soul may not be entirely appropriate.
- 56.
These references are to Aristotle, De anima, Book II, Parts V and VII, and the corresponding commentary by Averroes (Aristotelis omnia quae extant opera nunc primum, Vol. VI, Part I. Venice, 1562). The idea that the species must be somehow changed to enter the intellect is also found in Avicenna’s Liber naturalis. See John S. Hendrix, Philosophy of Intellect in the Long Commentary on the De anima of Averroes. (2012): 1–23; and Bacon, De multiplicatione specierum, 193 and 385.
- 57.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 5, 43-4 (462). Ergo de necessitate habebunt esse corporale, quia corpus et spiritus opponuntur sine medio. Et si habent esse corporale, etiam habent esse materiale, et ideo debent servare leges rerum materialium et corporalium, et ideo misceri, quando sunt contrariae, et una fieri, quando sunt eiusdem speciei praedicamentalis…Ergo opportet quod habeat esse corporale in medio corporali. Caeterum species facit operationem corporalem, ut species caloris calefacit corpora, et exsiccat, et putrefacit, et sic de aliis speciebus. Ergo cum hoc facit calorem univoce, et mediante calore facit alia, necesse est quod sit res corporalis, quia res spiritualis non facit actionem corporalem univoce…Cum ergo Aristoteles et Averroes dicunt, quod species habet esse spirituale in medio et in sensu, patet quod non sumitur spirituale a spiritu, nec proprie. Ergo aequivoce et improprie, et hoc est verum. Nam pro insensibili sumitur: quia enim omne vere spirituale, ut Deus, angelus et anima, est insensibile, et non cadit sub sensum, ideo convertimus terminos et insensibilia vocamus spiritualia. This allows Bacon to remain a supporter of universal hylomorphism, or the belief that everything is a combination of matter and form. For more on Bacon and universal hylomorphism, see Crowley, Roger Bacon; and Yael Kedar, “The Intellect Naturalized: Roger Bacon on the Existence of Corporeal Species within the Intellect,” Early Science and Medicine 14:1–3 (2009): 131–57.
- 58.
Yael Raizman-Kedar, “The Intellect Naturalized: Roger Bacon on the Existence of Corporeal Species within the Intellect.” Early Science and Medicine 14:1/3 Evidence and Interpretation: Studies on Early Science and Medicine in Honor of John E. Murdoch (2009): 131–57. There is an active debate in the scholarly community as to what exactly species “are”—corporeal, incorporeal, material, etc.
- 59.
Bacon, De multiplicatione specierum, Part 3, Chapter 2, 188–9. Si igitur species est res spiritualis, non habebit causam corporalem; ergo nulla species fieret a corporibus, quod falsum est (therefore, if a species is a spiritual thing, it cannot have a corporeal cause; and consequently, no species would be produced by bodies, which is contrary to fact). It may be problematic that species do not have quantity, but this is more likely than not an instance where Bacon has not fully thought through the implications of his work or failed to synthesize different sources.
- 60.
Bacon, De multiplicatione specierum, Part 1, 7. Species explain how the superlunary bodies can influence sublunary bodies. Though generation and corruption are impossible in the heavens, alteration/assimilation of celestial bodies by terrestrial ones is, so that the two may be connected. See Bacon, De multiplicatione specierum, Part 1, 73–5.
- 61.
Lindberg, Roger Bacon’s Philosophy of Nature, Introduction.
- 62.
Bacon, De multiplicatione specierum, Part 1, 77–87; Allen, “Roger Bacon’s Medical Alchemy,” 167.
- 63.
Likewise, the world must be made of generables and corruptibles, because if only ungenerable and incorruptible things existed, we would only have the elemental and celestial spheres and the spiritual substances. See Bacon, De multiplicatione specierum, Part 1, 79.
- 64.
Bacon, De multiplicatione specierum, Part 1, 11, 81–7.
- 65.
Bacon, De multiplicatione specierum, Part 1, 85–7. Bacon extended this discussion to the creation of man. Given that man is rational and noble, should not man be a more powerful agent than many other terrestrial things? Why then cannot man change things to his likeness using species? This answer to this, Bacon wrote, is that God has willed that mankind only generate via procreation. For the good of both man and the world, it is important that man not multiply beyond necessity. See also Yael Kedar, “Roger Bacon (c. 1220–1292) and His Systems of Laws of Nature: Classification, Hierarchy and Significance,” Perspectives in Science 25:6 (2017): 719–45.
- 66.
Bacon, Opus tertium, Chapter 31, 222. Pseudo-Albertus Magnus’ Speculum astronomiae also uses these examples. Bacon may have gotten this example from Robert Grosseteste’s De lineis, angulis et figuris. See Robert Grosseteste, “Concerning Lines, Angles, and Figures,” in A Source Book in Medieval Science, edited by Edward Grant. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974), 386. I have not been able to find other instances of this example in the thirteenth century, so I cannot speak to its popularity outside the Oxford Franciscan circle.
- 67.
This is characteristic of Bacon’s writings. Bacon was a notorious self-plagiarist, and often resurrected previous ideas to support new ones.
- 68.
Bacon, De multiplicatione specierum, Part 1, 75–7.
- 69.
Bacon, De multiplicatione specierum, Part 1, 49, 73; Bacon, Communia naturalium, 45–9.
- 70.
Lindberg, Roger Bacon’s Philosophy of Nature, Introduction. According to Aristotle’s De generatione et corruptione, Bacon wrote that the recipient “is always in potentiality what the agent is in actuality.” See Bacon, De multiplicatione specierum, Part 1, 7 and 207.
- 71.
Bacon, De multiplicatione specierum, Part 1, 87.
- 72.
Bacon, De multiplicatione specierum, Part 1, 53–5.
- 73.
Bacon, De multiplicatione specierum, Part 1, 103.
- 74.
Bacon, De multiplicatione specierum, Part 2, 197 and 207.
- 75.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 4, 142–3 (163–4). Species travel in all directions through a medium, but not all rays of species are of the same strength. Species that are refracted and reflected in straight lines are more powerful than those that travel along other paths.
- 76.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 4, 143 (164). See also Bacon, Epistola, Chapter 3, 529–31; Bacon, Liber sex scientiarum, 186; and Bacon, Opus tertium, Chapter 26, 196–8.
- 77.
Maier, On the Threshold of Exact Science, 124–42.
- 78.
Maier, On the Threshold of Exact Science, 124–42.
- 79.
Bacon, Opus minus, 365–6. Thus, the form of a mixture does not come from the elements.
- 80.
Bacon, Opus minus, 360–3. In the case of a piece of wood, with the predominant element earth, being burned and turned into fire, the nature of fire destroys the specific nature of earth and replaces it with that of fire, which the wood had in potentiality.
- 81.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 6, 214–5 (627).
- 82.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 6, 209 (625); Bacon, Secretum secretorum, 9.
- 83.
Bacon, Reg. Lat. 1317, fol. 127v. Matus also points to the notion of an equal body after the resurrection as a source of inspiration for Bacon’s idea “that the body can be perfected.” See Matus, Franciscans and the Elixir of Life, 47.
- 84.
Bacon, Antidotarius, 111–12.
- 85.
Bacon, Antidotarius, 112.
- 86.
Travaglia, Magic, Causality, and Intentionality, 81.
- 87.
Bacon, Secretum secretorum, 24. The author reminds the reader that this is a very difficult task, and only a few people have been able to accomplish it. The author of De retardatione accidentium senectutis talks about a medicine with equal proportions, temperate in the tenth grade, but this does not appear in the genuine Bacon or the Secretum secretorum. See Little, De retardatione accidentium senectutis, 134–5. See also Allen, “Roger Bacon’s Medical Alchemy,” 169–74.
- 88.
Matus, Franciscans and the Elixir of Life, 3; Little, De retardatione accidentium senectutis, xxxix.
- 89.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 6, 212 (625).
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Allen, M.S. (2023). The Corpus Equale. In: Roger Bacon and the Incorruptible Human, 1220-1292. Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12898-1_4
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