SCOT TRANSLATES AVERROES 135 



entered upon this work were tilling no virgin soil, 

 but a familiar field in which the plough of Scot at 

 least had left deep furrows. Even the renowned 

 Grostete, Bishop of Lincoln, who executed a version 

 of the Ethica from the Greek about 1250, was but 

 following in the path which this earlier master 

 had opened up. Michael Scot here takes rank with 

 Boethius and Jacobus de Venetiis, who were among 

 the first to seek these pure and original sources of 

 Aristotelic doctrine. He appears as one who not 

 only completed the knowledge of his time with 

 regard to the Arabian philosophy by translating 

 Averroes, but who gave some help at least to lay 

 the foundation of a more exact acquaintance with 

 the works of Aristotle by opening a direct way to 

 the Greek text. We may even see a sign of this 

 remarkable position in the place of honour given, 

 perhaps accidentally, to Scot's version of the Nova 

 Ethica at the opening of the St. Omer manuscript. 

 He stands between two ages, and lays a hand of 

 power upon each. 



It is hardly necessary to add that in this he 

 shines all the more brightly when compared with 

 his great detractor. Boger Bacon, secure in the 

 consciousness of his commanding abilities, attacks 

 with a rare self-confidence, not Michael Scot alone, 

 but all the scholars of his time. Not four of them, 

 he says, know Hebrew, Greek, and Arabic.^ Those 

 who pretend to translate from these tongues are 

 ignorant even of Latin, not to speak of the sciences 

 treated of in the books which they pretend to 

 render intelligible. Busy in penning these diatribes. 

 Bacon does not seem to have reflected that the best 



^ Opus Tertium, Master of the EoUs ed. p. 91. 



