He was not merely a theorist, with speculative views of a character far in advance of those of the mass of contemporary schoolmen, but a practical investigator as well, who by his experiments and discoveries pushed forward the limits of knowledge, and a sound scholar who saw and displayed to others the true means by which progress in learning was to be secured.

And though his submission, signalised on his death-bed, did not interfere with the freest working of his brilliant intellect within limits permitted to the former ecclesiastical "schoolmen," it did prevent his frank realization of the eternal oneness of all being.

Next to him among the royalist party was Viglius, president of the privy council, an erudite schoolman, attached less to the broad principles of justice than to the letter of the laws, and thus carrying pedantry into the very councils of the state.

Some ludicrous Schoolmen have put the Case, that if an Ass were placed between two Bundles of Hay, which affected his Senses equally on each Side, and tempted him in the very same Degree, whether it would be possible for him to Eat of either.

deorum, quid non sint, quam quid sint, our subtle schoolmen, Cardans, Scaligers, profound Thomists, Fracastoriana and Ferneliana acies, are weak, dry, obscure, defective in these mysteries, and all our quickest wits, as an owl's eyes at the sun's light, wax dull, and are not sufficient to apprehend them; yet, as in the rest, I will adventure to say something to this point.