60 THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF MICHAEL SCOT 



doubt expressed by Jourdain in this matter l is not 

 without reason, though the balance of probability 

 would seem to incline in favour of Bandmi's opinion ; 

 for such a volume can scarcely be assumed to have 

 been a mere miscellany without clear evidence that 

 the contents come from more than one author. 

 Taking it for granted then that the De Partibus 

 Animalium came from Scot's pen, then this is the 

 third form in which his labours on the Natural 

 History of Aristotle appeared. 



In any case, however, his chief merit in this 

 department of study belonged to Michael Scot as 

 the exponent of the Arabian naturalists. It is 

 difficult for any one who has not read the books in 

 question to form an adequate idea of their contents, 

 and still more of their style ; even from the most 

 careful description. We are made to feel that the 

 task of the translator must have been a very diffi- 

 cult one. There is a concentration combined with 

 great wealth of detail, and withal a constant nimble 

 transition from one subject to another, seemingly 

 remote, under the suggestion of some subtle connec- 

 tion, which result in a style almost baffling to one 

 who sought to reproduce it in his comparatively 

 slow and clumsy Latin. 



No greater contrast could be imagined than that 

 which separates such works from those which are the 

 production of our modern writers on the same sub- 

 ject. Nor does this difference depend, as one might 

 suppose, on the fact that a wider field of observa- 

 tion is open to us, and more adequate collections of 

 facts are at our disposal. Rather is it the case that 

 between ancients and moderns, between the eastern 



1 Becker dies, p. 133. 



