SOURCE: "All-Seeing Naturalist" and "Theologian," in St. Albert the Great, The Bruce Publishing Company, 1932, pp. 210-29, 270-95.

In the following excerpt, Schwertner describes the breadth and depth of Albert's erudition both as a scientist and a theologian.

All Seeing Naturalist

One of the inevitable results of the assiduous cultivation of the history of the various natural sciences, so characteristic of all scientific research today, is the rehabilitation of Albert's good name as a scientist. Scholars in goodly numbers are again thinking it worth their while to seek to evaluate his original contributions to the various sciences and to insist upon his towering position in the story of their development. While it is true that for centuries Albert did occupy a leading rank among the makers of science, it is also well known that he was ruthlessly pushed aside when the sciences had freed themselves from the influence of...