visual relationships of force and motion is quite at variance 
with the textual positivism of the humanist. Yet both humanist 
and the schoolman have been justly nominated for scientific 
honors. This natural confusion we shall see reaching explicit 
conflict in the mind of Francis Bacon. His own confusion will 
help to clarify many issues for us a little later on.

     The exegesis of the Bible had its own conflicts of method, 
and as Smalley indicates in her Study of the Bible in the Middle  
Ages  they concerned the letter and the spirit, the visual and 
the non-visual. She cites Origen:

     I published three books (on Genesis) from the sayings of 
     the Holy Fathers concerning the letter and the spirit . . . 
     For the Word came into the world by Mary, clad in flesh; 
     and seeing was not understanding; all saw the flesh;