To be asked to speak in praise of St Thomas is an honour which dismays as much as it flatters; for who could claim to be master of such a subject?

Yet to venture to praise St Thomas is already to claim to know him, not completely of course, but enough to recognise, in and through his work, a man distinct from all others and the work itself as an expression of reality differing in certain important respects from all others. But to know anyone is to claim a certain equality and likeness to him; as indeed we must do who dare to represent St Thomas to our generation. Representation is a kind of imitation; if we are not somehow like him inwardly how can we express his doctrine outwardly? Yet, doubtless, all of us would readily admit our inferiority to him, and would think that in this we were the more conformed to his own spirit which was so utterly unpretentious. And no doubt each of us is greatly his inferior in intelligence, let alone in holiness. But there is, I suppose, a special sense in which all of us, however gifted, are bound to be his inferiors; for we are all historically his followers, and heirs to an achievement which cannot in fact ever be supplanted. For workers in the tradition to which he made so extraordinary a contribution, St Thomas remains forever a master.