SCOT AGAIN AT COURT 143 



dola, who says of Scot's doctrine concerning the 

 stellar images : ' These invisible forms can be dis- 

 cerned neither by the senses nor by right reason, 

 and there is no agreement regarding them by their 

 inventors, who were not the Chaldeans or Indians 

 but only the Arabs/ . . . ' Michael Scot mentions 

 all these (images) as things most effectual, and with 

 him agree many astrologers, both Arabian and Latin. 

 I had heard somewhat of this doctrine, and thought 

 at first that it was meant merely as a convenient 

 means of mapping out the sky, and not that these 

 figures actually existed in the heavens. . . / 

 ' From the Greeks astrology passed to the Arabs 

 and was taught with ever-growing assurance. . . .' 

 * Aboasar, a grammarian and historical writer, took 

 this science from the Greeks, corrupting it with 

 countless trifling fables, and made thereof an 

 astrology much worse than that of Ptolemy. . . .' 

 ' In those days the study of mathematics, like that 

 of philosophy in general, made great progress in 

 Spain under King Alphonso, a keen student in the 

 calculus, especially as applied to the movements of 

 the heavenly bodies. He had also a taste for the 

 vain arts of the Diviner, having learned no better ; 

 and to please him in this many of the most im- 

 portant treatises of that kind, both Greek and 

 Arabic, have been handed down to our own day, 

 chiefly by the labours of Johannes Hispalensis and 

 Michael Scot, the latter of whom was an author 

 of no weight and full of superstition. Albertus 

 Magnus at first was somewhat carried away with 

 this doctrine, for it came with the power of 

 novelty to his inexperienced youth, but I rather 

 think that his opinions suffered change in later 



