Science and Scholasticism

Abstract

THE dialectical methods of the Middle Ages, admirably adapted to the sharpening of wits and the entertainment of audiences, have long been regarded by men of science as an inferior means of arriving at truth. I have no wish to enter into controversy with my friend Prof. Walsh as to the general merits of Aristotle. Yet I will venture to sum up in a sentence what I believe to be the conclusions of the overwhelming majority of modern Aristotelian scholars and of scientific men who have investigated the works of the master: Aristotle's physical science is almost worthless from the modern point of view; it has scarcely any serious basis of observation and none of experiment; his biological works, on the other hand, show him to have been an admirable and careful observer of animal life. He was thus an excellent naturalist but a very poor physicist. I will further endeavour to epitomise the verdict of most scientific students of the Middle Ages on his position in medieval science. It was chiefly Aristotle's physical works that earned for him his scientific reputation in the Middle Ages; his biological works exerted little influence until the sixteenth century. Those who assent to these propositions will not agree that “we have come to appreciate better medieval regard for him.”