[185] Jasinski, Sum. Ordin. Cap. Gen. p. 403.
[186] Const. FF. Præd. dis. n. note a.
[187] Const. FF. Præd. dis. ii. note b.
[188] Ibid. Paris, 1236. De Studiis linguarum. S. (Const. Fontana, 1862.)
[189] Const. Dis. ii. De Student. iv. note g.
[190] Const. F. F. Præd. De Studentibus. This provision of the ancient Constitutions is commented on by the statutes of more modern addition, wherein we see the immense importance attached by the Order to the study of Church history. After speaking of the study of the Scriptures, it is said: “Another fount of theological science is ecclesiastical history, which is, as it were, the complement, and ever-living interpreter of Holy Scripture; so that these two are the duo luminaria magna, illuminating all the faithful in Christ, and manifesting without a cloud of error, all those truths revealed by God; for the history of the Church, rightly speaking, is nothing else than Christian doctrine in act, nor is there any better or more easy way of knowing the Catholic dogma; for it is nothing else than a series of battles and triumphs of our faith against the insurgent heresies, which the Church, by her doctors, martyrs, and decrees of Popes and Councils has successively pierced through and overcome; whence the certain interpretation of Scripture and the clear explanation of tradition and the authoritative definition of dogma, are all to be found in the History of the Church.” Const. F. F. Præd. (Fontana, 1862.) De Studio, p. 458.
[191] Fleury, Histoire Eccl. Discours 5me.
The order of graduation, as it exists at present, is as follows: Eight years of study are required before any one can be admitted to the degree of Lector, and to obtain this a student must undergo an examination in Philosophy, Modern Controversy, Scripture, and the Summa of St. Thomas. The active or teaching course, required for the higher degrees of Bachelor and Doctor, remains nearly the same as in former days. Various modifications have from time to time been introduced into the legislation of the Order on this point, but the principle has always been retained of making a long course of teaching and repeated examinations the test of qualification. Secular students in a Dominican College, however, may be admitted to the degree of Doctor after only a three years’ course of Theology, provided they stand an examination in the Summa; and by the Bull of Pope Clement XII., all such secular graduates of the Dominican schools hold the same position in every respect as though they had been promoted to the Doctorship in the Roman College of the Sapienza. (Fontana, p. 206.)
[192] His words are as follows: “When I was at Venice, being still a youth, they were sawing some stones for the repair of one of the churches, and it chanced that in one of these blocks there appeared the figure of a head; as of a king, crowned with a long beard. The countenance had no other defect, save that the forehead was too high ascending towards the top of the head. All of us who examined it were satisfied that it was the work of nature. And I being questioned as to the cause of the disproportioned forehead, replied that this stone had been coagulated by the work of vapour, and that by means of a more powerful heat the vapour had arisen without order or measure.” (Op. tom. 2 De Mineralibus. lib. 2, tract. 3, c. i.) The expressions here used are somewhat obscure, but they seem to imply that Albert knew something of those phenomena which geologists explain as the result of volcanic heat and the action of vapour. “Transformed, or metamorphic rocks,” says Humboldt, “are those in which the texture and mode of stratification have been altered either by the contact or proximity of an irrupted volcanic rock, or, as is more frequently the case, by the action of vapours and sublimations which accompany the issue of certain masses in a state of igneous liquefaction.” (Cosmos. vol. i. p. 236.)
[193] “Quia totum scibile scisti.”—Jammy, Vita B. Alberti.