THE ALCHEMICAL STUDIES OF SCOT 81 



tales of were-wolves and of other animal forms 

 assumed at will by wizard and witch. We find it 

 in religion, infusing a new meaning into the hyper- 

 bolical language of still earlier times, till, under this 

 direction, there came to be fastened upon the 

 Church a full -formed doctrine of Transubstantia- 

 tion. 1 It is the operation of the same idea then 

 that we are to remark also in the scientific sphere. 

 As soon as the first shock of their surprise was 

 over, the Latins greedily embraced a theory of 

 chemical change which related itself so naturally to 

 the prevailing habit of their minds, and which 

 promised to show as operative in the mineral 

 kingdom a law already conceived to hold good in 

 the world of organic life. 



The Riccardian Library of Florence possesses 

 another of those volumes to which we have already 

 referred : a collection of alchemical treatises formed 

 in the end of the thirteenth or beginning of the 

 fourteenth century. 2 Among these appears one 

 called the Liber Luminis Luminum. It is said to 

 have been translated by Michael Scot, and, as there 

 is no reason to doubt this ascription, we have now 

 the means of determining with some fulness and 

 accuracy the lines on which the philosopher pro- 

 ceeded in his chemical researches. 



The book opens with a preface somewhat scho- 

 lastic, 3 and one which, on this ground as well as on 

 others, is probably to be ascribed to Scot himself. 



1 It is remarkable in this connection that * Transubstantiation ' 

 was finally imposed on the faithful by the Lateran council of 1215. 

 The term had not been previously used in theology. This was the very 

 epoch of Michael Scot and of the introduction of alchemy in the West. 



2 MS. Rice. L. iii. 13. 119, p. 35vo. 



3 ' In quo talia continentur, Intencio, Causa Intencionis et Utilitas,' 

 etc. 



F 



