Ancient and modern science compared.
Approaching his own time the author says that there are many other men whose excellent works of philosophy he has inspected but of whose names he is ignorant or has his reasons for keeping silent about.[1474] He does, however, name John the Peripatetic and Alfred, and still more recently Alexander the Minorite and Albert of Cologne, the friar preacher, as eminent philosophers and yet not to be considered authorities. The author nevertheless has no uncritical veneration for the learned men of the past. He thinks that with the exception of the Peripatetics very few of them had a complete or correct knowledge of the principles of nature and causes of natural phenomena or concerning the transmutation of the elements and the composition of physical bodies.[1475] Compared with moderns he finds their comprehension slight, except as they had fewer problems to occupy them and got results by concentrating for a long time on these. But he can think of no one among them except Boethius who was not guilty of some erroneous opinion. This attitude, however, is perhaps more owing to Christian prejudice than scientific superiority on our author’s part.
Criticism of Aristotle and the Arabic text.
Even Aristotle does not escape criticism. We are told that we should not accept his statement concerning the number of movers of the heavenly spheres, for, as Avicenna and Rabbi Moses have pointed out, the science of astronomy was little developed in his time.[1476] Nor are the Arabian commentators upon Aristotle left uncensured. It is said that some of the works of Aristotle in their present form smack more of Arabic loquacity than of Greek eloquence or the Aristotelian style, and that, especially in the Arabic text, interpolations and additions and alterations have been made involving patent anachronisms. Probably there have also been corresponding omissions.[1477] These criticisms of the Arabic text of Aristotle remind us of those which Roger Bacon said Grosseteste made.
Use of the word “modern.”
The author of this Summa is quite fond of employing the word “modern” which we heard him use above. He also tells how “Ptolemy, and other more modern mathematici” introduce epicycles in the orbits of the planets to save appearances, but have not fully determined “whether it is really so.”[1478] He also speaks of “Avenalpetras and the more modern Arabs” and calls Albertus Magnus “the most famous of the more modern theologians.”[1479]
Theology, philosophy, and science; speculative and experimental.
It is rather outside the limits of our investigation, but I cannot refrain from noting the Summa’s division of theologians into three classes: first, those who are original and have been made saints by the pope; second, those who are original and have not been sainted; third, the unoriginal minds who compile Summae from the works of the other two classes.[1480] The author believes that theology may utilize philosophy to refute heretics but that it must beware of making philosophy its chief end and should use theological terms as far as it can.[1481] Later he states that there are eight celestial spheres, according to the philosophers, nine according to the theologians who include the waters above the firmament as one.[1482] The author divides science into theoretical or speculative and practical or operative. He also has a touch of experimental science, asserting that very many experiences have proved that water will harden into stone,[1483] that the rules of genethlialogy and the predictions of astrologers are based upon the many specific cases observed and classified from experience by past astrologers,[1484] that many experiences in his own age—some of which he presently mentions—have shown that terrible events always follow the appearance of a comet,[1485] and that the alchemists had learned from many experiments that metals can be transmuted.
Astrology.
This favoring attitude toward astrology and alchemy is about all that there is left for us to notice in the Summa. The author thinks that no one has ever adequately treated the virtues appropriate to each planet, but quotes Rabbi Moses and Albumasar somewhat on this point.[1486] He has no difficulty in believing simultaneously in freedom of the will and genethlialogy.[1487] He also cites the passage in Albumasar concerning the astrological prediction of the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.[1488] In discussing comets, instead of attempting to explain their signifying disaster to whole regions naturally, as we heard Grosseteste do in his treatise on comets, the author of the Summa holds that “they appear of necessity by the will of God alone, not by chance or nature, but by the ministry of intelligences.”[1489] This was also the case with the star seen at Christ’s nativity. It may be, however, that this entire passage about comets and other astrological matters is an interpolation in the Summa, since it is in it that the mention of the date 1264 occurs to which we before alluded. The writer then goes on to say that his master, who was “most skilled in natural and mathematical science and most perfect in theology and most holy in life and religion,” taught him that Noah’s flood was necessitated by a constellation which God had foreordained for the wickedness of the then world.[1490] This, too, is perhaps a sign of an addition by some disciple of Grosseteste.