that Aristotle and the Arabic commentators generally were regarded with suspicion save in the treatment of logic, the one exception being Averroes, who was considered to be perfectly orthodox. So strange a perversion of the facts could only be due to Jewish influence, for the Jews at that time were devoted adherents of Averroes.
When the friars began to take their place in the work of the universities we note two striking changes: (i.) the friars cut loose entirely from the timid policy of conservatism and begin to make free use of all the works of Aristotle and of the Arabic commentators, and also make efforts to procure newer and more correct translations of the Aristotelian text from the original Greek; under this leadership the universities gradually became more modern and enterprising in their scientific work, though not without evidence of strong opposition in certain quarters. (ii.) As a natural corollary a more correct appreciation was made of the tendencies of the several commentators.
The leader in these newer studies was the Franciscan Alexander Hales (d. 1245), who was the first to make free use of Aristotle outside the logical Organon. His Summa, which was left unfinished and continued by the Franciscan William of Melitona, was based on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, and serves as a commentary to it. Peter Lombard, however, had not quoted Aristotle at all, whilst Alexander uses the metaphysical and scientific works as well as the logic.
