SOURCE: "Agrippa and Occult Philosophy," in A History of Magic and Experimental Science, Vol. V, Columbia University Press, 1941, pp. 127-38.

Thorndike was an eminent scholar of medieval history and scientific activity in the Middle Ages. His major work is the eight-volume A History of Magic and Experimental Science (1923). In the following excerpt from a revised edition of that work, Thorndike presents an overview of Agrippa 's life and career and offers mixed reviews of On the Uncertainty and Vanity of the Sciences and Occult Philosophy.

Neither is Henry Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim himself to be reckoned of much weight in intellectual history nor is his book on occult philosophy so important a work in the history of magic and experimental science as one might think at first sight. He was not a person of solid learning, regular academic standing, and fixed position, but rather one of those wayward...