For centuries the authority of these three great teachers was
unquestioned, and in countless manuals and catechisms their
doctrine was translated and diluted for the common mind. But
about the second quarter of the twelfth century a priest,
Honorius of Autun, produced several treatises which show that
thought on this subject had made some little progress. He
explained the rain rationally, and mainly in the modern manner;
with the thunder he is less successful, but insists that the
thunderbolt "is not stone, as some assert." His thinking is
vigorous and independent. Had theorists such as he been many, a
new science could have been rapidly evolved, but the theological
current was too strong.[329]
The strength of this current which overwhelmed the thought of
Honorius is seen again in the work of the Dominican monk, John
of San Geminiano, who in the thirteenth century gave forth his
_Summa de Exemplis_ for the use of preachers in his order. Of its
thousand pages, over two hundred are devoted to illustrations
drawn from the heavens and the elements.
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