Note 2048 — II. His Criticism of and Part in Medieval Learning

Little, Essays (1914), 11: “His first project was an elaborate one, including a systematic and scientific treatment of the various branches of knowledge; he worked at this, writing parts of the Communia Naturalium and Communia Mathematicae, for some months (‘till after Epiphany,’ i.e., January 6, 1267), but found it impossible. He then started again on a more modest scale, and wrote in the next twelve months the preliminary treatise known as the Opus Maius, which was supplemented by the Opus Minus, and subsequently, by the Opus Tertium.”