...and the kidneys. Whence it is said in the 12th book of the Metaphysics Aristotle’s work on the nature of existence and the divine that the whole heaven is like a single contiguous composite; therefore, we ought to be inclined toward the knowledge of the present book, which treats of human generation. Its efficient cause The agent or author responsible for bringing the work into being is said to have been Albertus Magnus Albert the Great (c. 1200–1280), a famous scholar and bishop, with most parts taken from Aristotle, who was sufficiently practiced or learned in experiments and informed by women. This is especially true in his Book on Animals, which he composed after traveling the whole world with Alexander Alexander the Great, Aristotle's famous pupil. This work is categorized under natural philosophy, because it is one of the books on "small natural matters" original: "parvis naturalibus," referring to the Parva Naturalia, a collection of short treatises by Aristotle on nature and psychology, and it is not purely natural philosophy, but partly medicinal.

P R E F A C E

To his beloved companion and friend in Christ, N., a cleric of such-and-such a place: true wisdom, and the continuous increase of the present life.

The subject of this book is "mobile being" A standard Scholastic term for physical matter subject to change, narrowed down to the nature of the secrets of women, so that when they are ill, we may be able to provide remedies; and when they are confessing, we may know how to give penances appropriate to the offense. It is divided first into two parts, namely the introductory and the executive. The executive part begins there, "as it is written," etc. First, the author greets the person to whom he writes, saying: I, Albert, dwelling in Paris, to his beloved companion and friend in Christ. Here the efficient cause is touched upon, both moving and moved. The moving cause was a certain priest, who asked Lord Albert to write him a book on the secrets of women. And this was because women are poisonous at the time of their menses, so much so that they intoxicate animals by their gaze, infect children in their cradles, stain a well-polished mirror, and sometimes cause one having intercourse with them to become leprous or cancerous. And because evil is not avoided unless it is known: therefore it is necessary for those wishing to abstain to know the uncleanness of coitus, and many other things which are taught in this book. And so Albert, seeing that he asked justly, consented to him, and thus the efficient cause is touched upon; and the moved cause when it is said, I write, etc. Wisdom is the knowledge of God and of eternal effects. And therefore the Philosopher Aristotle says in the preface to the Metaphysics: Of God properly it is not...