Pomponazzi was the last of the scholars to use the Scholastic method, at the last Scholastic university, about the middle of the Renaissance. He became famous for, and widely read after, interpreting Aristotle's doctrine of the soul differently than St. Thomas Aquinas and the Neo-Platonics had, at the same time putting the last nails in the coffin of the Averroistic doctrine of the soul, which, although Arabian, had been the talk of Italy. Pomponazzi, unlike those previously mentioned, concluded that the soul was not immortal, and there was no seperate intelligence apart from the soul.

Much of this book is dedicated to a discussion of all sides of the argument and their differences. It is of great academic value to anyone studying the theologies of Aristotle, Averroes, St. Thomas Aquinas, the Neo-Platonists, the Stoics, let alone those of Pomponazzi himself.

The book was written by Douglas as a thesis for a B.A. degree at Cambridge, though he is also described as a Professor of Apologetics and Pastoral Theology. It is so thorough and lengthy as to cast confusion on whether it came before or after his doctoral degree(s).