specific qualities. We have heard much of ionization in
recent times, and in many ways this would remind one even only
slightly familiar with the old scholastics, of their theories of form
entering into matter. Prime matter was supposed to be absolutely
without distinguishing characteristics of its own. It was indifferent,
and had no influence on other material unless when associated with
form. Form was the dynamic and energizing element.

This, of course, still remains in the realm of theory; {312} but it is
interesting to realize that in the olden time they theorized about the
constitution of matter at the universities of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries just as we do now, and most surprisingly came to
conclusions quite like ours. Their thoughts not only concerned the
same subject, but were worked out in the same way. It is idle to say
that they knew nothing about it and hit on their theory by chance. As
a matter of fact, they knew very little, if any less about it than we
do, for our ignorance on this subject is monumental, and they
anticipated our latest thinking by seven centuries. Many have been the
divagations of thought since that time, but now we return to their
conclusions. It is chastening to the modern mind, so confident of the
advances that have been made by these latter generations, "the heirs
of all the ages in the foremost files of time," to find that we are so
little farther on in an important problem than these men of the
thirteenth century.

Other basic problems with regard to matter and force filled the minds
of the medieval schoolmen quite as they do those of the modern
generations. For instance, they occupied themselves with the question
of the indestructibility of matter, and also, strange as it may seem,
with the conservation of energy. We have presumably learned so much by
experimental demonstration and original observation in the physical
sciences in the modern times, and especially during the precious
nineteenth century, that any thinking of the medieval mind along these
lines might, in the opinion of those who know nothing of what they
speak, be at once set aside without further question as preposterous,
or at best nugatory. The opinions of medieval scholars in these
matters would be presumed, without more ado, to have been so entirely
{313} speculative as to deserve no further attention. Nothing could
well be farther from the truth than this. Nowhere will more marvelous
anticipatio