Franciscans and the Elixir of Life. Zachary A. Matus
the relationship of humors to elements, Bacon considers alchemy one of the essential fields of knowledge for understanding living things, so long as it is married to scientia experimentalis.21 Jeremiah Hackett has distilled Bacon’s description of experimental science into three “prerogatives.”22 The first is the rigorous application of logic to observation and experience. The term “experience” is, in fact, closer to the meaning of experimenta than is the cognate “experiment.” Bacon argues that observation of phenomena can teach us new truths and even refute truths supplied by reason alone, as long as we apply our critical faculties to what is being observed. The second aspect of experimental science is the creation and manufacture of tools, weapons, and medicines. For instance, in addition to the elixir, Bacon proposes using experimental science to create giant mirrors capable of incinerating enemies at a great distance.23 Finally, Bacon believes that experimental science can supply a reliable source of divination for knowing things of the past, present, and future. This generally relates to the observation of astrological phenomena, but his writings on the elixir suggest that human beings may be able to gain such knowledge instantly.24
This is a good indicator that Bacon meant something rather different from experimental science by scientia experimentalis. In the Opus tertium he even calls certain branches of scientia experimentalis “magical (magicus).”25 In one sense, this is atypical of Bacon’s work, since he generally uses the term “magic” to describe deceits.26 On the other hand, the breadth of sciences Bacon recommends includes a number of practices that are defined, certainly today and often in medieval culture, as magical. Divination and the utterance of “words of power” are just as much a part of Bacon’s program as geometry. Thus, Bacon’s use of the term “magic” tends to have ethical and religious overtones. The medieval approach to magic was to define it in opposition to religion. Modernity retains the tendency to define magic as part of a binary, but the modern definition tends to contrast it with science.27 The problem here is that, well into the early modern period, the magic-science binary was not distinct, given the conviction that, as Michael Bailey has put it, “the natural world was conceived as a direct manifestation of the supernatural order.”28
Bacon is quite aware of the problem of terminology. One of the reasons he advocates so strongly for scientia experimentalis is that too many of its practices have been discarded as magical or sorcerous, when they should belong to the natural philosopher.29 Bacon argues that the application of scientia experimentalis, especially critical observation, can help sort out what is magical and what is not.30 Bacon uses the example of a magnet to prove this point. People are easily fooled, he argues, when a fraudulent magician uses a magnet to attract iron. By uttering incantations or scrawling sigils on the ground, the magician makes people think that these activities move the iron, when it is in fact the natural property of the magnet.31 On the other hand, Bacon does not reject magical words or symbols wholesale, griping at one point that women and demons have “abused characters and incantations written by the wise.”32 Therefore, scientia experimentalis enfolded a wide variety of practices, linking them through a particular methodology.
One linkage in particular bears special mention, namely, the relationship between astrology/astronomy and medicinal or speculative alchemy. As noted in the prior section, the connection between celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies (of any kind) was understood to be quite strong. Bacon himself was a fierce defender of the merits of astrology and reinforced the link between celestial bodies and human physiology.33 The effect of celestial motion on the human changed from moment to moment, and intersected with a person’s humoral make-up, what Bacon called complexion. The effect of both the stars and the humors (themselves partly determined by the position of the stars at one’s birth) exerted significant force on human behavior. The notion that physiology was somewhat determinative in regard to behavior has a history dating back to Aristotle, but Christian theologians had resisted the idea of deterministic forces compelling behavior. One had to be free if sin was to be a meaningful category. Bacon is careful to maintain that complexion inclines people to action, but does not obviate free choice.34 Rather, Bacon hoped to use astrology and alchemy to mitigate the negative effects of the humors and stars and intensify the positive.
Bacon took a moderately declensionist view of human bodies and their complexion. He agreed that biblical writings demonstrated that humans once had much longer lifespans, which had shortened gradually since the exile from Eden. At the same time, he did not think that this was a necessary condition of human existence. Sinfulness and immoderation had polluted humanity’s ancestors, who passed on these defects to their children, where they were compounded over succeeding generations and shortened the human lifespan. Because this was an “accidental,” not a necessary, condition of the world, human lifespans were subject to expansion as well.35
Bacon recounts a number of tales (hearsay for the most part) to prove the truth of this statement. (As much as Bacon championed observation and reason, he was also prone to rely on the authority of anyone worthy of belief.36) For instance he relates the tale of a peasant who found in a field a golden vessel full of liquid that bestowed on him sixty years of youth.37 He also discusses the benefits of consuming dragon flesh, including both health and mental acuity.38 These medicines might seem miraculous, but Bacon regards their effects as resulting from their composition: “That liquor which the rustic drank is thought to have approached an equality of elements far beyond ordinary food and drinks.”39
This equilibrium is one of two theoretical keys to Bacon’s elixir. As he puts it in the Opus maius, “If the elements should be prepared and purified in some mixture, so that there would be no action of one element on another, but so that they would be reduced to pure simplicity, the wisest have judged that they would make a perfect medicine.”40 Such perfect mixtures are supposedly inaccessible through nature, making the administration of medicine a fraught pursuit. One of the concerns of medieval pharmacy was to ensure that medicines did not further disrupt the bodily imbalance that caused the ailment in the first place, or reverse it in such a way as to cause a different ailment or death. Apart from physical injuries, medieval observers considered illnesses to arise out of a humoral imbalance. Too much blood, for instance, (a hot and wet substance) could produce certain kinds of fevers. Hence pharmaceutical documents engage in a great deal of discussion of the properties of various herbs, stones, foods, and liquids that might go into a medicine. What might be healthy for a feverish woman may not be good for a healthy man. Yet an elementally balanced compound, such as Bacon’s elixir, had the potential to restore humoral equilibrium by purifying the body of the excess substance and conferring upon it what it lacked, regardless of a person’s original complexion.
Perhaps the most powerful example Bacon employs to explain this theory is an example known to all his readers: Adam in the Garden. Adam, writes Bacon, was immortal only so long as he ate from the Tree of Life. Adam’s body was, like all terrestrial bodies and compounds, made up of elements and humors that acted upon one another. It was subject to change, that is, to corruption, and therefore to dissolution. Because the humors acted upon one another, there could be both imbalance and waste. Hence Adam, like all people, needed to eat to rebalance his humors. Regular food, as noted earlier, has particular humoral qualities as well. While a thoughtful diet (that is, one based on food that replenishes lost humors and mitigates excess humors) is vital for health, it never perfectly balanced one’s complexion. The fruit of the Tree of Life, however, had “elements approaching equality,” and could have kept Adam alive indefinitely.41 Just as we have seen in Chapter 1, Bacon is reading Genesis as natural philosophy. Bacon agreed that the interpretation of scripture relied on natural philosophy, but here we get a clear example of Christian doctrine driving alchemical theory. Had the Bible been a text that merited only spiritual reflection, it is hard to conceive of Bacon developing the elixir along the lines he did.
Adam’s body was, of course, superior to postlapsarian ones (Bacon predictably makes no mention of Eve’s body), but in one sense all bodies are the same. Every human body is naturally immortal (naturalis immortalis), meaning it can exist indefinitely provided it has a balanced complexion.42