A History of Magic and Experimental Science, Volume 2 (of 2): During the First Thirteen Centuries of Our EraThorndike, Lynn
History
A History of Magic and Experimental Science, Volume 2 (of 2): During the First Thirteen Centuries of Our Era
Thorndike, Lynn
Magic -- History; Science -- History
The influence of Achmet’s work is also seen in a treatise on the
prognostication of dreams compiled by master William of Aragon.[945]
It opens by referring to the labors in this art of the ancient
philosophers of India, Persia, Egypt, and Greece, and later it cites
Smarchas the Indian,[946] whom I take to be the same as the Strbachan
of Achmet’s second chapter. William justifies writing his treatise
by saying that while there may be many Dream-Books in existence
already, they are mere _Practice_ and without reason, while he intends
to base the prediction of the future from dreams upon rational
speculation, and to support his particular reasoning by specific
examples.[947] He makes more use of Aristotle’s classification of
dreams[948] than the anonymous work just considered, from which he
further differs in dwelling more upon the connection of dreams with the
constellations.[949] The second part of his treatise consists of twelve
chapters devoted to the twelve astrological houses.[950] Earlier he
mentions that at the nativity of Alexander an eagle with extended wings
rested all day on the roof of the palace of his father Philip.[951]
In stating the signification of various objects William has a chapter
on what different parts of the human body signify when seen in
dreams.[952] Like our previous works on divination from dreams, he lays
considerable stress upon experience, illustrating his statement that
dreams are often due to bodily ills by cases which “I have seen,”[953]
and also asserting that it is shown by experience that dreams seen on
the first four days of the week are most quickly fulfilled.[954]
[Sidenote: Who was William of Aragon?]
This William of Aragon is no doubt the same who commented upon the
_Centiloquium_ ascribed to Ptolemy.[955] From his medical experience
and his tendency to give an astrological explanation for everything one
is tempted to identify him further with the William Anglicus or William
of Marseilles who wrote the treatise of astrological medicine entitled,
_Of Urine Unseen_, in the year 1219, but it is of course unlikely
that the same man would be called of Aragon as well as of England
and Marseilles or that the words _Anglicus_ and _Aragonia_ should be
confused by copyists.
[Sidenote: His work formerly ascribed to Arnald of Villanova.]
The treatise on dreams has been printed among the works of Arnald
of Villanova,[956] a physician who interpreted dreams for the kings
of Aragon and Sicily at the end of the thirteenth century, under
the title _Expositio_ (or, _Expositiones_) _visionum quae fiunt in
somniis_.[957] The _Histoire Littéraire de la France_[958] has noted
that in the manuscript copies the work was anonymous and not ascribed
to Arnald, but I believe that I am the first to identify it with the
work of William of Aragon.
[Sidenote: Another anonymous work on dreams.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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