The one absorbing science of the middle ages was theology. Learning, in all its branches, pointed to the study of religion as the great terminus of the human mind, and the one right road from heaven to earth. The liberal arts were but a careful and laborious preparation for philosophy or logic; logic, in turn, was only valuable inasmuch as it was an instrument for the ordering, defending, and proving the great truths of revelation. The great object of life was to know God. Jacques de Vitry beautifully says, "All science ought to be referred to the knowledge of Christ." It may be laid down roughly that the Scriptures, Peter Lombard's Book of Sentences, and Aristotle, were the three great bases on which the active intellect of the 13th century rested in its development and analysis of truth. The students of the Paris University may be divided into three classes: those who lived in seminaries, those who lived in monasteries, and those who lived as best they could. Some were destitute, living on charity, or in _hospitia_; others were rich and lordly, great spendthrifts and swaggerers, studying out of mere curiosity, or pure conceit. John of S. Alban had founded a _hospitium_ for pilgrims, with a chapel dedicated to S. James; this he handed over to the Dominicans, which gift the University confirmed on condition that mass was said for its living and dead members twice a year. Thus the Dominicans came in contact with the University. From the first they attended the theological schools of the Church of Paris. S. Louis built them a convent, and at his death left them a part of the library he had collected at the Sainte Chapelle. Novices were taught Latin and logic; and disputations echoed in the cloister. Meditation was made to counterbalance the excitement of study. The lectures were given in large halls. In the middle stood the chair of the master, with another seat below, and in front of him a stool for the bachelor who was going through his training. If there was not room on the benches, the students sat on the straw which covered the floor. The teaching was principally done by question and answer, by exposition, repetition, and disputation. No book was used, the teacher might have the text before him, and sometimes the students took notes in shorthand, which they wrote out at their leisure. Nothing has been handed down, of any moment, regarding the studies of S. Thomas at Paris during this period. Albert was at the height of his reputation. His lecture-hall was so crowded, that he was forced to lecture in a square, near Notre Dame, known as the Place Maubert.