Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/323

Rh 8. Two other works of William of Conches, the Secunda Philosophia and the Tertia Philosophia, are described in the twelfth volume of the Histoire littéraire de la France. They remain in manuscript at Paris; but specimens, some chapters at length, and tables of contents, are printed by i Cousin. The first, k we are told, is a dialogue on anthropology between a master and a disciple; the second, also a dialogue, is an abridgement of the author's system of cosmography, derived from the Philosophia. Had however Cousin been acquainted with the Dragmaticon he would probably have suspected that this was the immediate source, and would have found that D. stands not for discipulus but for dux, the duke of Normandy to whom the work is dedicated. Moreover these works are not abridgements at all. The one is a literal transcript of part of the Dragmaticon, the other is a set of disconnected extracts from it. The latter is taken from different parts of books ii.–vi., and leaves off just before the point from which the former is transcribed. Of course it is impossible to speak with absolute certainty from Cousin's specimens, but the following details of collation suggest a sufficiently plain inference.

The Secunda Philosophia begins with the words Dicendum est, &c., which introduce the section on animals occupying the major part of the sixth book of the l Dragmaticon. The