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.  And if I had power over these translations of Aristotle, I would have every copy of them burned; for to study them is only a loss of time and a cause of error and a multiplication of ignorance beyond telling.  And since the labors of Aristotle are the foundation of all knowledge, no one can estimate the injury done by means of these bad translations."[25]

Bacon had occasion for lamenting not only the character of the translations in use, but also the fact that many of the most important works of the ancients were not translated at all, and hence lay out of the reach of all but the rare scholars, like himself and his friend Grostete, who were able, through their acquaintance with the languages in which they were written, to make use of them, provided manuscripts could be found for reading.  “We have few useful works on philosophy in Latin.  Aristotle composed a thousand volumes, as we read in his Life, and of these we have but three of any notable size, namely,—­on Logic, Natural History, and Metaphysics; so that all the other scientific works that he composed are wanting to the Latins, except some tractates and small little books, and of these but very few.  Of his Logic two of the best books are deficient, which Hermann had in Arabic, but did not venture to translate.  One of them, indeed, he did translate, or caused to be translated, but so ill that the translation is of no sort of value and has never come into use.  Aristotle wrote fifty excellent books about Animals, as Pliny says in the eighth book of his Natural History, and I have seen them in Greek, and of these the Latins have only nineteen wretchedly imperfect little books.  Of his Metaphysics the Latins read only the ten books which they have, while there are many more; and of these ten which they read, many chapters are wanting in the translation, and almost infinite lines.  Indeed, the Latins have nothing worthy; and therefore it is necessary that they should know the languages, for the sake of translating those things that are deficient and needful.  For, moreover, of the works on secret sciences, in which the secrets and marvels of Nature are explored, they have little except fragments here and there, which scarcely suffice to excite the very wisest to study and experiment and to inquire by themselves after those things which are lacking to the dignity of wisdom; while the crowd of students are not moved to any worthy undertaking, and grow so languid and asinine over these ill translations, that they lose utterly their time and study and expense.  They are held, indeed, by appearances alone; for they do not care what they know, but what they seem to know to the silly multitude."[26]