514 PATRICK H, YANCEY 



two orders, however, is not inevitable. Certainly, it was not 

 the case with the great scholastics, nor is it today with the 

 serious student of traditional scholasticism. 



The faith of St. Albert the Great neither impeded nor un- 

 duly influenced his interest in nature and his scientific method 

 in the investigation of it. His scientific methodology and his 

 knowledge of nature did not vitiate his faith but provided the 

 basis for the science of theology. The wisdom of Albertus 

 Magnus, " a man so superior in every science that he can 

 fittingly be called the wonder and the miracle of our time," ® 

 " was readily accepted by his most gifted disciple, St. Thomas 

 Aquinas, who made it an integral part of his entire thought." ^ 

 St. Thomas, as a physical theorist, has been overshadowed by 

 his reputation as a theologian, in fact, " one could say that 

 his valuable contributions to the development of physical sci- 

 ence have been lost in the great mass of his writing on theology 

 and philosophy." ^ The physical theory of St. Thomas, how- 

 ever, does not allow an authoritarian approach, nor even a 

 general approach satisfied with easy answers. " A science which 

 regards things only in general is not science complete in its 

 ultimate act. . . . Hence it is evident that science, to be com- 

 plete, must not be content with general knowledge, but must 

 proceed to a knowledge of the species." ® 



Recent studies by members of the Albertus Magnus Ly- 

 ceum ^° have clearly shown that the scientific methodology of 



® Ulrich of Strasbourg, Summa de Bono, IV, tr. 3, c. 9, cited by J. A. Weisheipl, 

 O. P., The Development of Physical Theory in the Middle Ages (New York: 

 Sheed & Ward, 1959) , p. 27. 



^J. A. Weisheipl, O.P., op. cit., p. 29. 



*W. A. Wallace, O. P., "St. Thomas Aquinas, Galileo, and Einstein," The 

 Thomist, XXIV (1961), 1. 



'St. Thomas, In I Meteor., lect. 1, n. 1. 



^° See W. A. Wallace, 0. P., The Sdentific Methodology of Theodoric of Freiberg 

 (Fribourg: University Press, 1959) ; J. A. Weisheipl, O. P., op. cit„ and " Albertus 

 Magnus and the Oxford Platonists," Proc. Am. Cath. Phil. Assoc, XXXII (1958), 

 124-139; W. H. Kane, O. P., et al.. Science in Synthesis (River Forest, 1953); 

 B. M. Ashley, O. P., Aristotle's Sluggish Earth: The Problematics of the De Caelo 

 (River Forest, 1958); J. R. Nogar, O. P., An Analysis of Contemporary Theory 

 of Physical Science (River Forest, 1952); M. A. Glutz, C. P., The Manner of 

 Demonstrating in Natural Philosophy (River Forest, 1956) . 



