,
the following works are prescribed: Aristotle's Physics,
Metaphysics, De Anima, De Animalibus, De Caelo et Mundo, Meteorica,
the minor psychological treatises and some Arabian or Jewish works,
such as the Liber de Causis and De Differentia Spiritus et Animae."

As time went on in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the
attention to physical sciences was increased rather than diminished.
Much of Albertus Magnus's work, and practically all of that of Aquinas
and Roger Bacon, was done after the date here given (1255).

The medieval workers at the universities were under the obligation of
having to lay the foundations for modern thought, instead of being
able to build up the magnificent superstructure which has risen in the
seven centuries since the universities were founded. Without the
foundation, however, the building would indeed not be worthy of
admiration. Their work is concealed beneath the surfaces of things,
but is not the less important for that, and is in most ways more
significant than many portions of the structure that have risen above
it. Unless one digs down to see how broad and deep and firm they laid
the foundations, the modern critic will not be able to appreciate
their work at its true value. Very few men are able to do this; still
fewer have the time or the inclination. The consequence is a sad lack
of sympathy with these old-time workers, who nevertheless did their
work so well, and whose accomplishment meant so much for the modern
time. It is not hard to {306} show that their minds were occupied with
just the same problems that interest us, and the wonderful thing is
that they anticipated so many of our conclusions, though these
anticipations are wrapped up not infrequently in a terminology that
obscures their meaning for any but the patient, sympathetic student.
In his Harveian Lecture, Science and Medieval Thought, Professor
Clifford Allbutt, of the University of Cambridge, England, said:--

"Each period of human achievement has its phases of spring,
culmination, and decline; and it is in its decline that the leafless
tree comes to judgment. In the unloveliness of decay, the Middle
Ages are as other ages have been; as our own will be; but in those
ages there was more than one outburst of life; more than once the
enthusiasm of the youth of the West went out to explore the ways of
the realm of ideas; and if we believe ourselves at last to have
found the only thoroughf