The résumé that Isidore offers is strikingly complete. In this respect he surpasses all the writers of his own and immediately preceding periods, his scope being much more general than that of his nearest contemporaries, Boethius and Cassiodorus. He goes back here to the tradition of the encyclopedists of the Roman world, Varro, Verrius Flaccus, Pliny, and Suetonius, by the last of whom he is believed to have been especially influenced. Few writers of any period cover the intellectual interests of their time so completely. To understand Isidore’s mental world is nearly to reach the limits of the knowledge of his time.[3] [3] Nihil enim Isidorus intentatum reliquit: facultates omnes attigit, scientias humanas divinasque pertractavit, scriptores veteres profanos et sacros evolvit, atque in suum usum descripsit; nec contentus etymologico suo opere scientiarum encyclopaediam comprehendere, multa singillatim in sacrarum litterarum interpretatione disseruit, multa in omni alio theologiae genere, multa in philosophicis atque astronomicis argumentis, multa in re litteraria, chronologica et historica. Arevalo, _Prolegomena in Editionem S. Isidori Hispalensis_, cap. 1, 3. The influence which he exerted upon the following centuries was very great. His organization of the field of secular science, although it amounted to no more than the laying out of a corpse, was that chiefly accepted throughout the early medieval period. The innumerable references to him by later writers,[4] the many remaining manuscripts,[5] and the successive editions of his works[6] after the invention of printing, indicate the great rôle he played.[7] From the modern point of view the real benefit he conferred upon succeeding centuries was that in his encyclopaedic writings he presented to the intelligent the fact that there had been and might be such a thing as secular science; while the blunders in which he was continually involved, and the shallowness of his thinking, offered a perpetual challenge to the critical power of all who read him. There was contained in his writings also, as we shall see, the embryo of something positive and progressive, namely, the organization of educational subjects that was to appear definitely in the medieval university and dominate education almost to the present day. [4] Arevalo in his _Prolegomena_, cap. 33, collects passages containing “laudes Isidori” from medieval writers, including Fredegarius, Alcuin, William of Malmesbury, Vincent of Beauvais, and others. Isidore is cited by Petrarch in a way which shows that he was much read in his time. Petrarch is giving authorities for his theory of poetry, and after mentioning Varro and Suetonius, he says: “Then I can add a third name, which will probably be better known to you, Isidore.” _Cf._ Robinson and Rolfe, _Petrarch_, p. 263.