SCOT TRANSLATES AVERROES 131 



Creator. Nay more, when a man throws a stone, 

 these teachers attribute the consequent motion not 

 to the man but to the universal Agent, and thus 

 deny any true human activity. 



' There is even a more astounding corollary of 

 his doctrine ; for if God can cause that which is 

 aot to enter into being, He can also reduce being 

 :o nothing ; destruction, like generation, is God's 

 ork, and Death itself has been created by 

 im. But in our way of thinking destruction is 

 ike generation. Each created thing contains in 

 tself its own corruption, which is present with it 

 potentially. In order to destroy, just as to create, 

 t is only necessary for the Agent to call this 

 otentiality into activity. We must in short 

 aintain as co-ordinate principles both the Agent 

 .d these potential powers. Were one of the 

 o wanting, nothing could exist at all, or else 

 being would reduce itself to action ; either of 

 hich consequences is as absurd as the other.' 

 We cannot wonder that Albertus Magnus, and 

 who held the Christian faith, were alarmed by 

 octrine of this kind and fiercely opposed it. The 

 hodox beliefs of Christians, Jews, and Mo- 

 mmedans alike were declared false by this bold 

 iter, whom several expressions which we have 

 .bodied in the above summary show clearly to 

 ve been Averroes, and not Michael Scot. In one 

 e indeed we seem to discover what may 

 ve suggested the widely spread fable that 

 rederick n., or Scot, or some other of their 

 mpany and party, had produced an atheistic 

 ork called De Tnbus Imposto?*ibus. The im- 

 tation was a false one, yet most natural were 



