Beginning with the work of the Trinity at the creation, he goes on to detail the work of angels in all their fields, and makes excursions into every part of creation, visible and invisible, but always with the most complete subordination of his thought to the literal statements of Scripture.

Could he have taken the path of experimental research, the world would have been enriched with most precious discoveries; but the force which had given wrong direction to Albert of Bollstadt, backed as it was by the whole ecclesiastical power of his time, was too strong, and in all the life labour of Vincent nothing appears of any permanent value.

He reared a structure which the adaptation of facts to literal interpretations of Scripture and the application of theological subtleties to nature combine to make one of the most striking monuments of human error.( 271) (271) For Vincent de Beauvais, see Etudes sur Vincent de Beauvais, par l'Abbe Bourgeat, chaps.

xii, xiii, and xiv; also Pouchet, Histoire des Sciences Naturelles au Moyen Age, Paris, 1853, pp.

470 et seq; also other histories cited hereafter.
But the theological spirit of the thirteenth century gained its greatest victory in the work of St.Thomas Aquinas.