wholly outside the field of human reasoning, and by a
careful definition of the relation borne by the universe
to its Creator, 1 sought to erect an impassable dis
tinction between the two. In thus guarding against the
pantheistic issues to which realism was liable, he was
obliged to divorce the two spheres of logic and theology
which the schools had always been inclined to confuse.
With these, proceeds John, I applied myself for the full
space of two years, to practice in the commonplaces and rules
and other rudimentary elements, which are instilled into the
minds of boys and wherein the aforesaid doctors were most
able and ready ; so that methought I knew all these things
as well as my nails and fingers. This at least I had learned,
in the lightness of youth to account my knowledge of more
worth than it was. I seemed to myself a young scholar,
because I was quick in that which I heard. Then returning
unto myself and measuring my powers, I advisedly resorted,
by the good favour of my preceptors, to the Grammarian of
Conches, and heard his teaching by the space of three years ;
the while teaching much : nor shall I ever regret that time.
John therefore turned to grammar after dialectic ; he had
by this time become conscious of an intellectual appetite
which would not be satisfied by the formal routine of
logical teaching. Alberic and Robert, he says, might have
done good work in physical science had they stood as fast upon
the tracks of the elders as they rejoiced in their own discoveries.
It was their new-fangled system which he wanted to ex
change for the less fashionable but more solid study of
grammar. He was therefore glad when an opportunity presented itself for him to attend the master whose writings
shew him chiefly as a natural philosopher, but whom John
distinguishes for his peculiar eminence as a grammarian.
John does not name the place where William of Conches taught, but the minute description which he elsewhere gives of the school of Chartres -a description to which particular attention has been directed in a preceding chapter, not to speak of his many personal reminiscences of its former head Bernard and of Gilbert of La Porrée,
