reproached him in mild and sorrowful accents that he had not made a
better choice. She, however, granted his request that he should become
the most excellent philosopher of the age; but set this drawback to
his pleasure, that he should relapse, when at the height of his fame,
into his former incapacity and stupidity. Albertus never took the
trouble to contradict the story, but prosecuted his studies with such
unremitting zeal that his reputation speedily spread over all Europe.
In the year 1244, the celebrated Thomas Aquinas placed himself under
his tuition. Many extraordinary stories are told of the master and his
pupil. While they paid all due attention to other branches of science,
they never neglected the pursuit of the philosopher's stone and the
elixir vitae. Although they discovered neither, it was believed that
Albert had seized some portion of the secret of life, and found means
to animate a brazen statue, upon the formation of which, under proper
conjunctions of the planets, he had been occupied many years of his
life. He and Thomas Aquinas completed it together, endowed it with the
faculty of speech, and made it perform the functions of a domestic
servant. In this capacity it was exceedingly useful; but, through some
defect in the machinery, it chattered much more than was agreeable to
either philosopher. Various remedies were tried to cure it of its
garrulity, but in vain; and one day Thomas Aquinas was so enraged at
the noise it made, when he was in the midst of a mathematical
problem, that he seized a ponderous hammer and smashed it to pieces.
[Naude, "Apologie des Grands Hommes accuses de Magie ;" chap. xviii.]
He was sorry afterwards for what he had done, and was reproved by his
master for giving way to his anger, so unbecoming in a philosopher.
They made no attempt to re-animate the statue.

Such stories as these show the spirit of the age. Every great man
who attempted to study the secrets of nature was thought a magician;