The Summae of old were the Bibles of knowledge: we have now no Summae, and no one among us is capable of writing one. Everything is in chaos. But at least, if a collective Summa is premature, every man who thinks and really desires to know can try to establish his personal Summa, that is to introduce order into his knowledge by an appeal to the principles of order; in a word, by philosophizing, and by crowning his philosophy with a concise but profound theology.
–AG Sertillanges, O.P., The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods, trans. Mary Ryan, 109
