St. Thomas frequently enters into controversy with the Arabic commentators, and especially attacks the doctrines (i.) that there was a primal indefinite matter to which form was given at creation (cf. Summa. lae quaes. 66, art. 2); (ii.) that there were successive series of emanations, a doctrine which had now assumed an astrological character; (iii.) that the Agent Intellect was the intermediary in creation (cf. Summa. 1, 45, 5; 47, 1; 90, 1); (iv.) that creation _ex nihilo_ is impossible; (v.) that there is not a special providence ruling and directing the world; and (vi.) most of all, the doctrine of the unity of intellects, a doctrine which, as he shows, is not to be found in Aristotle, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Avicenna, or Ghazali, but is a speculative theory of Averroes alone, at least in the form then becoming popular as pampsychism. All these objections were essentially the same as had been already brought forward by the orthodox scholastics of Islam, and undoubtedly al-Ghazali is used in refuting them. According to St. Thomas, the doctrine of pampsychism is entirely subversive of human personality and of the separate individuality of the _ego_, to which our own consciousness bears witness. God creates the soul for each child as it is born; it is no emanation, but has a separate and distinct personality. As a corollary he denies the _ittisal_ or final “union,” which involves the reabsorption of the soul in its source. It is worth noting that St. Thomas received his education before joining the Dominican order in the university of Naples, which had been founded by Frederick II. and was a centre of interest in the Arabic philosophers, and this probably goes far to account for his more accurate appreciation of their teaching. Unquestionably St. Thomas Aquinas must be regarded as the prince of the Latin scholastics, for it is he who first draws freely upon metaphysics and psychology and co-ordinates them with theology--the psychological analysis given in the _Secunda secundae_ of the Summa is one of the best products of the Latin scholastics--and also he was the first to appreciate correctly the difficulties of translation and insist on an accurate rendering as essential to an understanding of Aristotle. For the most part, as we have noted, the mediæval scholars undervalued the translator’s task and were content with a hack interpreter, and saw no reason for applying themselves to the study of the original text, a view in which the Arabic philosophers shared. Incidentally St. Thomas was the first who makes free use of all the Arabic commentators and shows that he is fully aware of their defects. Undoubtedly he regarded Averroes as the best exponent of the Aristotelian text, and the supreme master in logic, but heretical in his metaphysics and psychology.