516 ADDITIONS. 



scarce agree with each other in one empty question or one worthless 

 sophism, or one operation of science, as one man agrees with another 

 in the practical operations of medicine, surgery, and the like arts of 

 secular men. Indeed,' he adds, ' not only the philosophers, but the 

 saints have fallen into errors which they have afterwards retracted,' 

 and this he instances in Augustin, Jerome, and others. He gives an 

 admirable sketch of the progress of philosophy from the Ionic School 

 to Aristotle ; of whom he speaks with great applause. ' Yet,' he adds, 7 

 ' those who came after him corrected him in some things, and added 

 many things to his works, and shall go on adding to the end of the 

 world.' Aristotle, he adds, is now called peculiarly 8 the Philosopher, 

 ' yet there was a time when his philosophy was silent and unregarded, 

 either on account of the rarity of copies of his works, or their diffi- 

 culty, or from envy ; till after the time of Mahomet, when Avicenna 

 and Averroes, and others, recalled this philosophy into the full light 

 of exposition. And although the Logic and some other works were 

 translated by Boethius from the Greek, yet the philosophy of Aristotle 

 first received a quick increase among the Latins at the time of Michael 

 Scot ; who, in the year of our Lord 1230, appeared, bringing with him 

 portions of the books of Aristotle on Natural Philosophy and Mathe- 

 matics. And yet a small part only of the works of this author is 

 translated, and a still smaller part is in the hands of common students.' 

 He adds further 9 (in the Third Part of the Ojms Majus, which is a 

 Dissertation on Language), that the translations which are current of 

 these writings, are very bad and imperfect. With these views, he is 

 moved to express himself somewhat impatiently 10 respecting these 

 works : ' If I had,' he says, ' power over the works of Aristotle, I would 

 have them all burnt ; for it is only a loss of time to study in them, and 

 a course of error, and a multiplication of ignorance beyond expression.' 

 ' The common herd of students,' he says, ' with their heads, have no 

 principle by which they can be excited to any worthy employment ; 

 and hence they mope and make asses of themselves over their bad 

 translations, and lose their time, and trouble, and money.' 



7 Op. Maj. p. 36. 8 Autonomatice. » Op. Maj. p. 46. 



10 See Pre/, to Jebb's edition. The passages there quoted, however, are not ex- 

 tracts from the Opus Maj 'us, but (apparently) from the Opus Minus (MS. Cott. Tib. 

 c. 5). " Si haberem potestatem supra libros Aristotelis, ego facerem omnes cre- 

 uiari ; quia non est nisi temporis amissio studere in illis, et causa erroris, et multi- 

 plicatio ignorantise ultra id quod valeat explicari. . . . Vulgus studentum cum 

 capitibus suis non habet unde excitetur ad aliquid dignum, et ideo languet et asi- 

 ninat circa male translate, et tempus et studium amittit in omnibus et expensas." 



