"The text is in great part horribly corrupt in the copy of the
Vulgate at Paris, ...and as many readers as there are, so many
correctors, or rather corruptors, ...for every reader changes the text
according to his fancy."[22] Even those who professed to translate new
works of ancient learning were generally wholly unfit for the task.
Hermann the German knew nothing of science, and little of Arabic, from
which he professed to translate; but when he was in Spain, he kept
Saracens with him who did the main part of the translations that he
claimed. In like manner, Michael Scot asserted that he had made many
translations; but the truth was, that a certain Jew named Andrew worked
more than he upon them.[23] William Fleming was, however, the most
ignorant and most presuming of all.[24] "Certain I am that it were
better for the Latins that the wisdom of Aristotle had not been
translated, than to have it thus perverted and obscured, ...so that the
more men study it the less they know, as I have experienced with all who
have stuck to these books. Wherefore my Lord Robert of blessed memory
altogether neglected them, and proceeded by his own experiments, and
with other means, until he knew the things concerning which Aristotle
treats a hundred thousand times better than he could ever have learned
them from those perverse translations.
Pages:
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351