ess
ones who have asked whether the science of the nineteenth
century after an equal interval will be of any more positive
value--whether it will not have even less comparative interest
than that which appertains to the scholasticism of the
thirteenth.

Three men were the great teachers in the medieval universities at their
prime. They have been read and studied with interest ever since. They
wrote huge tomes, but men have pored over them in every generation. They
were Albertus Magnus, the teacher of the other two, Thomas Aquinas and
Roger Bacon. All three of them were together at the University of Paris
shortly after the middle of the thirteenth century. Anyone who wants to
know anything about the attitude of mind of the medieval universities,
their professors and students, and of all the intellectual world of the
time towards science and observation and experiment, should read the
books of these men. Any other mode of getting at any knowledge of the
real significance of the science of this time is mere pretence. These
constitute the documents behind any scientific history of the
development of science at this time.

It is extremely interesting to see the attitude of these men with regard
to authority. In Albert's tenth book (of his "Summa"), in which he
catalogues and describes all the trees, plants, and herbs known in his
time, he observes: "All that is here set down is the result of our own
experience, or has been borrowed from authors whom we know to have
written what their personal experience has confirmed; for in these
matters experience alone can be of certainty." In his impressive Latin
phrase "_experimentum solum certificat in talibus_." With regard to the
study of nature in general he was quite as emphatic. He was a theologian
as well as a scientist, yet in his treatise on "The Heavens and the
Earth" he declared that "in studying nature we have not to inquire how
God the Creator may, as He freely wills, use His creatures to work
miracles and thereby show forth His power. We have rather to inquire
what nature with its immanent causes can naturally bring to pass."[37]

Just as striking quotations on this subject might be made from Roger
Bacon. Indeed, Bacon was quite impatient with the scholars around him
who talked over-much, did not observe enough, depended to excess on
authority, and in general did as mediocre scholars always do, made much
fuss on second-hand information--plus som