Collection: St. Thomas Aquinas

St. Thomas Aquinas, 1225 to 1274, was a Dominican friar who lectured at Paris in the thirteenth century and spent his working life on one conviction: that faith and plain reason answer to each other rather than fight. His students reportedly called him the dumb ox because he was large and said little. He out-argued all of them.

The useful part for most readers is his account of virtue. Prudence, justice, courage and self-command are not moods that come over you. They are trained, like a trade, by repeated acts, and they can be lost the same way. He is also unusually careful about how to weigh a hard case, which is why lawyers still read him.

His teaching on virtue is discussed inside the story in Guardians of the Canon. Children get a reason a thing is right, not just a feeling about it.