Thomas, Melchior Canus, and Suares remodelled the _Summa_ without
adding anything essential to it. In the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries the Sorbonne composed for use in the schools handy treatises
which are for the most part revised and reduced copies of the _Summa_.
At each page one can detect the same texts cut out and separated from
the comments which explain them; the same syllogisms, triumphant,
but devoid of any solid foundation; the same defects of historical
criticism, arising from the confusion of dates and places.
Theology may be divided into dogmatics and ethics. Dogmatic theology,
in addition to the Prolegomena comprising the discussions relating
to the sources of divine authority, is divided into fifteen treatises
upon all the dogmas of Christianity. At the basis is the treatise
_De la vraie Religion_, which seeks to demonstrate the supernatural
character of the Christian religion, that is to say of Revealed Writ
and of the Church. Then all the dogmas are proved by Holy Writ, by the
Councils, by the Fathers, and by the theologians. It cannot be denied
that there is a very frank rationalism at the root of all this. If
scholasticism is the descendant in the first generation of St. Thomas
Aquinas, it is descended in the second from Abelard. In such a system
reason holds the first place, reason proves the revelation, the
divinity of Scripture and the authority of the Church. This done, the
door is open to every kind of deduction.
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