The following is a list of works read in whole or in part in the curriculum of Thomas Aquinas College. They are not all of equal weight. Some are regarded as masterworks, while others serve as sources of opinions that either lead students to the truth or make the truth more evident by opposition to it. (In 2010, College Dean Brian T. Kelly [1] began a series of presentations to the Board of Governors about why the curriculum includes particular authors and subjects. You can read those talks by clicking here [2].)

 

Freshman Year | Sophomore Year | Junior Year | Senior Year
Compositions | Senior Thesis

Freshman Year
Theology
	The Holy Bible
Philosophy
	Plato	Meno, Protagoras, Gorgias, Apology, Crito, Phaedo [3]
	Porphyry	On the Predicaments (Isagoge)
	Aristotle	Categories, On Interpretation, [4]Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, [5] Topics [6]
	St. Thomas Aquinas	Proemium to the Commentary on the Posterior Analytics
Natural Science
	Aristotle	Parts of Animals
	DeKoninck	The Lifeless World of Biology
	Fabre	Souvenirs Entomologiques [7]
	Galen	On the Natural Faculties [8]
	Harvey	On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals [9]
	Linnaeus	Systema Naturae
	Pascal	On the Equilibrium of Liquids
	Archimedes	On Floating Bodies
	Mendel	Plant Hybridization
	Various Authors	Scientific papers of Driesch, Gould and Marler, Tinbergen, Goethe, Virchow, von Frisch, et alia
		Measurements Manual
Mathematics
	Euclid	Elements [10]
Language
	Wheelock	Latin: An Introductory Course Based on Ancient Authors [11]
	Nesfield	Aids to the Study and Composition of English
Seminar
	Homer	Iliad [12], Odyssey [13]
	Plato	Ion, Symposium, [3]Republic [14]
	Aeschylus	Agamemnon [15], The Libation Bearers [16], Eumenides [17]
	Sophocles	Oedipus Rex [15], Oedipus at Colonus [17], Antigone [15]
	Herodotus	Histories [18]
	Plutarch	Lives (Lycurgus, Pericles, Aristides, Alcibiades, [19] Alexander) [20]
	Aristotle	Poetics, Rhetoric [21]
	Euripides	Hippolytus [15]
	Thucydides	History of the Peloponnesian War [22]
	Aristophanes	The Birds, The Clouds [23]

Sophomore Year
Theology
	St. Augustine	On Christian Doctrine, [24] On the Spirit and the Letter, On Nature and Grace, On the Predestination of the Saints, On the Gift of Perseverance, City of God [25]
	St. Athanasius	On the Incarnation [26]
	Gaunilo	On Behalf of the Fool [27]
	St. Anselm	Proslogion, Reply to Gaunilo [27]
	St. John Damascene	An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith
Philosophy
	Pre-Socratic Philosophers	Fragments
	Aristotle	Physics, [28] De Anima [29]
Natural Science
	Aristotle	On Generation and Corruption
	St. Thomas Aquinas	On the Principles of Nature, On the Combination of the Elements
	Lavoisier	Elements of Chemistry [30]
	Avogadro	Masses and Proportions of Elementary Molecules
	Dalton	Proportion of Gases in the Atmosphere
	Gay-Lussac	Combination of Gaseous Substances
	Pascal	Treatise on the Weight of the Mass of Air
	Various Authors	Scientific papers of Berthollet, Couper, Lavoisier, Mendeleev, Richter, Wollaston, Cannizzaro,et alia
		Atomic Theory Manual
Mathematics
	Plato	Timaeus [3]
	Ptolemy	Almagest
	Copernicus	Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
	Apollonius	On Conic Sections [31]
	Kepler	Epitome of Copernican Astronomy, Astronomia Nova
	Archimedes	On Conoids and Spheroids
Language
	Wheelock	Latin: An Introductory Course Based on Ancient Authors [11]
	Martin of Denmark	Tractas De Modis Significandi
	Horace, Cicero	Selections
	St.Thomas Aquinas	Selections
	Canon of the Mass
Seminar
	Virgil	Aeneid [32]
	Lucretius	On the Nature of Things [33]
	Livy	The Rise of Rome [34]
	Plutarch	Lives (Marcellus, Caius Marius, Sylla, [19] Tiberius Gracchus, Caius Gracchus, Caesar, Cato the Younger, Marcus Brutus, Comparison of Dion and Brutus) [20]
	Cicero	On Duties [35]
	Tacitus	Annals [36]
	Epictetus	Manual [37]
	St. Augustine	Confessions, On the Teacher
	Boethius	Consolation of Philosophy [38]
	Dante	Divine Comedy; Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise [39]
	Chaucer	Canterbury Tales [40]
	Spenser	Faerie Queen [41]
	St. Thomas Aquinas	On the Teacher

 

Junior Year
Theology
	St. Thomas Aquinas	Summa Theologiae: On Sacred Doctrine, On God, On Law
Philosophy
	Aristotle	Nicomachean Ethics, [42] Politics [43]
Natural Science
	Descartes	Principles of Philosophy
	Galileo	Two New Sciences [44]
	Newton	Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
Mathematics
	Viete	Standard Enumeration of Geometric Results, Introduction to the Analytic Art
	Descartes	Geometry
	Archimedes	Quadrature of the Parabola
	Various Authors	Mathematical works of Hippocrates, Archimedes, Cavalieri, Pascal, Leibniz, Bernoulli, Newton, Berkeley, Balzano,et alia
Music
	Plato	Timaeus [3]
	Boethius	On Music
	Mozart	Sonatas
	Gustin	Tonality
	Kalkavage	On the Measurement of Tones
Seminar
	Cervantes	Don Quixote [45]
	St. Thomas Aquinas	On Kingship, Summa Theologiae I-II, Q. 105, Art. 1 [46]
	Machiavelli	The Prince, Discourses [47]
	Shakespeare	Julius Caesar, [48] King Richard the Second, [49] King Henry the Fourth: Part One, [50] Hamlet, [51] King Lear, [52] Othello, [53] Macbeth, [54] Twelfth Night, [55] The Tempest, [56] Sonnets
	Bacon	The Great Renewal, The New Organon [57]
	Descartes	Discourse on Method, Rules for the Direction of the Mind, [58] Meditations [59]
	Pascal	Pensées [60]
	Hobbes	Leviathan [61]
	Spinoza	Theologico-Political Treatise [62]
	Milton	Paradise Lost [63]
	Corneille	Le Cid [64]
	Racine	Phaedre [65]
	Locke	Essay Concerning Human Understanding, [66] Second Essay on Civil Government [67]
	Berkeley	Treatise Concerning Human Knowledge [66]
	Hume	An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding [66]
	Swift	Gulliver’s Travels [68]
	Gibbon	Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire [69]
	Leibniz	Discourse on Metaphysics [70]
	Rousseau	Social Contract, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [71]
	Kant	Critique of Pure Reason [72]
	Hamilton, Madison, Jay	Federalist Papers [73]
	Articles of Confederation, Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, Lincoln-Douglas Debates [74]

 

Senior Year
Theology
	St. Thomas Aquinas	Summa Theologiae: On the Trinity, On the Sacraments, On the Passion of Christ
Philosophy
	Aristotle	Physics, Metaphysics [75]
	St. Thomas Aquinas	On Being and Essence
Natural Science
	Einstein	Relativity: The Special and the General Theory [76]
	Huygens	Treatise on Light
	Newton	Optiks
	Maxwell	A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism
	Gilbert	De Magnete
	Ampere	Papers
		Mechanics, Waves, and Optics Manual
		Electricity and Magnetism Manual
Mathematics
	Pascal	Generation of Conic Sections
	Taylor	Integral Calculus
	Dedekind	Essay on the Theory of Numbers [77]
	Lobachevski	Geometrical Researches On The Theory Of Parallels [78]
Seminar
	Tolstoy	War and Peace [79]
	Smith	Wealth of Nations [80]
	Kant	Critique of Pure Reason, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals [81]
	Goethe	Faust [82]
	Hegel	Philosophy of History, [83] Phenomenology of Mind [84]
	Feuerbach	Essence of Christianity
	Tocqueville	Democracy in America, [85] The Old Regime and the French Revolution [86]
	Twain	Huckleberry Finn [87]
	Austen	Emma [88]
	Conrad	Heart of Darkness [89]
	Marx	Capital, [90] Communist Manifesto, [91] Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, [92] German Ideology [93]
	Engels	Quantity and Quality, Negation of the Negation
	Ibsen	A Doll's House
	Dostoyevski	Brothers Karamazov [94]
	Darwin	Origin of Species [95]
	Nietzsche	On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History, [96] Beyond Good & Evil [97]
	Kierkegaard	Fear and Trembling, [98]Philosophical Fragments [99]
	Flaubert	Three Tales [100]
	Newman	Development Of Christian Doctrine [101]
	Melville	Billy Budd [102]
	Eliot	Journey of the Magi, The Waste Land
	Freud	General Introduction to Psychoanalysis [103]
	Jung	Analytical Psychology [104]
	Cather	My Antonia [105]
	St. Thomas Aquinas	The Division and Methods of the Sciences [106]
	St. Pius X	Pascendi Dominici Gregis
	Leo XIII	Aeterni Patris, Rerum Novarum
	Pius XII	Humani Generis
	Pius XI	Quadragesimo Anno
	Second Vatican Council	Lumen Gentium
	O’Connor	A Good Man is Hard to Find, The Enduring Chill [107]
	Plato	Phaedrus [3]

Compositions

Writing requires both greater completeness and greater precision than does speech. On the one hand, the writer cannot make assumptions about the unknown reader; on the other hand, his prose must be efficient. The College helps students develop their writing skills through the essays they write periodically each year. Five essays are written in  freshman year, four sophomore year, and two lengthier essays are written in junior year. These essays are reviewed carefully by tutors for content as well as for grammar, style, and arrangement and development of ideas. Seniors write a more substantial “Senior Thesis”.

Senior Thesis

The Senior Thesis is an integral part of the curriculum. As compared with the other parts, it requires a greater independence on the part of the student. He frames a question of the sort the authors in the program themselves frame and, under the direction of a tutor, refines, explores, and answers that question. The student’s answer need not be ultimate, but it must not be superficial or simply the repetition of authority. The thesis is of greater length than the other compositions in the program and is defended before a committee of faculty examiners in a session open to all.

The ability to carry out such an investigation and reasonably to account for and defend its conclusions is an important aim of the program, and a successful Senior Thesis may be seen as a formal and public display that the student has begun to have such an ability in his own right.

The following titles are representative of Senior Theses:The True Method of Procedure in Biological Science

• Obedience and Its Relationship to Charity
• The View of Human Nature Underlying the United States Constitution
• The Role of Suffering in Redemption
• A Defense of the Legitimacy of the Calculus
• The Effect of Philosophy on Language: A Consideration of the Poetry of T. S. Eliot
• Why Should Music Be Studied Mathematically?
• A Consideration of the Difficulties of the Special Theory of Relativity
• The Difference between Grammar and Logic
• Whether the Marital Union Is a Fitting Symbol of the Union of Christ and the Church
• The Atomic Theory in View of the Physics of Aristotle
• Whether Men Can Be Good without Grace
• A Consideration of the Ways in Which Galileo and Newton Use the Infinite in Understanding Motion
• An Analysis and Critique of John Locke’s Theory of the End of Government
• Is Tonal Music Natural?
• When Is the Rational Soul Present in Man’s Generation?
• The Natural Law in the Declaration of Independence: A Classical Interpretation