74 



SanctaG Theologies intromiserit ;...in ipsa sacraria 

 Christ! 1 ." Men got used to reason, and great pro- 

 testants, such as Robert of Lincoln, had put justice 



1 Albert " nostri temporis stupor et miraculum ! "is an 

 attractive figure, and deserves his renovvp as the greatest of 

 the medieval sages. His endowments were richer and wider 

 than those of the great Italian logician, his pupil, whose name 

 has had a greater vogue, and whose doctrines are still the 

 accepted discipline of the Church of Rome. Albert restored 

 Aristotle, and in astronomy and chemistry sought for truth in 

 nature. That St Thomas was a man of the highest intellectual 

 power and attainments, an eminence which is claimed for 

 him by many scholars, as by Mr Vernon in his edition 

 of the Paradise, I cannot admit ; unless it be to a critical 

 scholar who has mastered the contents of his many folios, if 

 such a scholar there be. For my part, after reading much of 

 what is written of St Thomas, I have but done what was possible 

 to me in other such cases ; that is, I have run my eye over 

 the titles of his books and chapters, and formed some rapid 

 judgment here and there of the ways of his thought. Now I 

 venture to assert that the ways of the thought of Aquinas, 

 subtle and symmetrical as they are, lie wholly within the 

 formulas of his age. He left science for logic, the stuff of 

 thought for its instrument; satisfying himself with such 

 tinkling cymbals as "Nihil potest per se operari, nisi quod 

 per se subsistit ;...Impossibile est quod forma separetur a 

 seipsa...qu<>d subsistens per se desinat esse"... and so forth. 

 Albert though a less symmetrical is a more original genius. 

 To Aquinas indeed I should hesitate to attribute genius ; to 

 Albert it seems to me this title may be granted, if with some 

 hesitation. " Vir famosus et erroneus" was Roger Bacon's 

 summary of Albert's career, but Bacon was scarcely an 

 indifferent witness. 



