This procedure will enable those who wish to examine, by way of comparison, the solutions to the same problems given by Bonaventure, Duns Scotus, William of Occam, and others. There is another consideration which explains why, in our brief outline of scholastic philosophy, we treat principally of Thomism. He is the complement of the past even more than the beginning of a new trend of thought. He was not the discoverer of all the doctrines which go to make up his philosophical system. He embodied in philosophy the unifying tendencies which were evident everywhere in the civilization of the thirteenth century.
Peace is the tranquillity of order.
The pedagogical aim which we have before us in this little work forces us to limit ourselves to the consideration of the great and central doctrines of Thomism, and to leave aside the innumerable applications of those doctrines which may be found scattered up and down the extensive works of Thomas Aquinas. Nor shall we be able to deal with the relations between Thomism and the civilization with which it was contemporaneous. It is no doubt true that there were close relations between scholastic Philosophy and Theology in the thirteenth century. But this philosophy is religious only in the sense in which one can apply the term to art, politics, and domestic, social and economic institutions generally. The philosophical work of Thomas Aquinas forms with his theological work a diptych, of which the two wings complete or rather supplement each other, yet each retains its own independent significance.