Page:Readings in European History Vol 1.djvu/494

 458 Readings in European History trifling in comparison with our knowledge. Neverthe- less, when all the contributions are correlated, selected, and brought together, they produce something really great. This is readily seen in the case of the various branches of knowledge where, by the studies and insight of many investigators, a marvelous increase results." Roger Bacon, as usual, took a rather gloomy view of the situation. " The books and sciences of Aristotle," he says, "are the foundations of all the study of wisdom, and whoever is ignorant of his works labors in vain and takes useless pains. Yet the sciences in general, such as logic, natural philosophy, mathematics, are so badly translated that no mortal can really understand anything of them, as I myself have learned by sad experience. . . . Therefore I am sure it would be better for the Latins if the wisdom of Aristotle had not been trans- lated at all than translated so obscurely and incorrectly." Bacon declares, further, that he has seen the translations made by Thomas Aquinas and his colleague, and that they are altogether incorrect and should be carefully avoided. In his remarkable History of the Medieval Univer- sities Rashdall thus describes the work of the great Dominican scholars. The Dominican theologians made peace between the con- tending factions by placing Aristotle and the fathers side by side, and deferring as reverently to the one as to the other, except on the few fundamental points upon which the former could not be interpreted into harmony with the latter. The scholastic form of argument, which attained its full development in Aquinas, a chain of authorities and syllogisms in defence of one thesis, another series for the