PHILOSOPHIC SCIENCES. 



of the Dominicans at Cologne, where he opened a fresh course of teaching. 

 His contemporaries surnamed him the Universal Doctor; and when he died in 

 1280, aged eighty-seven, he left behind him countless works upon every 

 branch of human learning amongst others, some voluminous commentaries 

 on all the books of Aristotle. 



Albertus Magnus has erroneously been classed amongst the realists ; he 

 belonged rather to the nominalists, having declared in favour of the doctrine 

 of Abelard upon the principal questions which excited the controversy of 

 the schools. Thus, far from considering the kinds and species as substances, 

 he looked upon them as essential modes, as manners of being inherent in the 



Fig. 42. Seal of the Faculty of Theology 

 of Paris (Fourteenth Century). 



Fig. 43. Counter-Seal of the University 

 of Paris (Fourteenth Century). 



substance of individuals. He denned, after the fashion of the nominalists, 

 the things which are the object of empirical research ; that is to say, the 

 beings which together make up the universe. Albertus Magnus was never 

 persecuted, or even looked upon with suspicion, because of his doctrines ; he 

 had the good sense to stop short at the limits beyond which lay heresy. His 

 doubts and indecision began at the point where it was dangerous to follow up 

 the argument, and to resolve problems which the Church will not allow to 

 be approached except by the foot of faith. 



These problems the great St. Thomas Aquinas, the pupil and contem- 

 porary of Albertus Magnus, brought, so to speak, within the limits of 



