Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/326

308 It was a book of extracts systematically arranged. But Oudin, too, had only seen the second volume printed without date or place about 1474. The same work manifestly is intended by J. A. Fabricius, when he says of William of Conches:

r Prodiit etiam sub tempus nascentis typographiae Philosophia eius maior de naturis creaturarum superiorum, sive super opere sex dierum libri. xxxiii. duobus maioribus in folio voluminibus rarissime obviis, excusisque sine anni nota locive.

The authors of the s Histoire littéraire de la France complicated the matter by erroneously asserting that Fabricius spoke of the book as in three volumes and confused it with the work of Vincent of Beauvais. Fabricius said two volumes, of which the second is beyond doubt the second volume of the Speculum naturale. The probable inference is that the first volume of which Possevinus, Fabricius, and the authors of the Histoire littéraire were unable to find a copy, was likewise the first volume of the Speculum.

10. These last writers state, with Oudin, that the book contained little original matter, being mainly compiled by means of extracts from the fathers. Nevertheless they regard it as the source from which (a) the Philosophia, (b) the Secunda Philosophia, and (c) the Tertia Philosophia, were successively abridged; a statement which has been repeated by t Cousin and others. Even the accurate Hauréau, who had the Dragmaticon before him, said in the first edition of his u Philosophie scolastique, that the Secunda and Tertia Philosophia 'paraissent avoir été faits pour venir à la suite de celui que nous venons de nommer,' the Magna de Naturis Philosophia; 'si, toutefois,' he adds, 'ils n'en forment pas une partie.' x It has further been asserted that the great work was largely used by Vincent of Beauvais in his Speculum naturale; but all the extracts from William which I have met with in it are taken either from the Philosophia or the Dragmaticon.