Thomas Aquinas

On Studies

Introduction by Eva St. Clair and Rega Wood

Thomas Aquinas says: “ To the third it must be said that the seven liberal arts do not adequately divide theoretical philosophy. Rather, as Hugh of St. Victor says in the third book of his Didascalon, they make up (along with certain other arts) the subjects in which those who intend to study philosophy are first instructed. Thus, they are divided into the trivium and the quadruvium so that by these---as if by certain roads---the vigorous mind may enter the innermost recesses of philosophy. This is consonant also with the statement of the Philosopher in the second book of the Metaphysics that the method of science should be sought before the sciences themselves.“

Original Latin