To put the matter to the proof: we may begin by dismissing altogether from consideration a treatise which has long been attributed to Scot, and still appears in the most recent list of his works: the _Quaestio curiosa de natura Solis et Lunae_. It has probably received more attention than it deserves since it appeared under Scot’s name in the _Theatrum Chemicum_.[118] The subject of this treatise is indeed an alchemical one; for the _sun_ and _moon_ of which it speaks are not these heavenly bodies themselves, but, by an allegorical use common in the Middle Ages, and derived from the Eastern theories of sympathy already mentioned, stand for the nobler metals of gold and silver. A brief examination, however, shows that Scot could not have been the author. The very style suggests this conclusion; for it is distinctly scholastic, and proper therefore to a later age than that which aimed at the direct and simple reproduction of Eastern texts. It is satisfactory to find that this criticism, hardly convincing _per se_, is fully borne out by what occurs in the substance of the work itself. The author quotes from the _De Mineralibus_ of Albertus. Now Albertus Magnus, by common testimony, produced this treatise after the year 1240, and we may anticipate what is afterwards to be told of Michael Scot’s death so far as to say here that he had then been long in his grave. The _De Natura Solis et Lunæ_ then must be ascribed to some other and later alchemist, who lived in the end of the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth century. A more careful examination of the treatise than has been necessary for our purpose might succeed in fixing its date with greater precision, and might possibly throw some light upon the person of its true author.