book and who declare that it bears this title z in most of
the manuscripts. But since writing this and the foregoing
excursus I have had the advantage of reading M. Haureau’s
admirable criticism contained in the eighth chapter of
his Singularity historiques el litteraires,[1] He there states
positively that no such manuscript exists in France, nor to
his knowledge elsewhere. Accordingly he conjectures that
the bibliographers mistook some other book, published
about the same time, for William of Conches s ; and he
suggests that the book in question is the De Universo of
William of Auvergne. The precise identification will not
serve, but there can be little doubt as I think, a con
fusion with the Speculum nalurale that some blunder of
this kind originated the whole theory which, it has already
appeared, is so difficult to reconcile with the known facts
about William of Conches.
VII. Excursus on the Interpretation of a Place in John of Salisbury’s Metalogicus, i. 24 pp. 784 sq.
1. William of Conches has been generally regarded as a teacher who abandoned the thorough and honest system of the school of Chartres in order to compete with the shallower and more pretentious masters of his day. The vol. 12. 457- Histoire litteraire de la France illustrates this defection by the instance of his work, the Philosophia, which it supposes to be an abridgement of a previous book, the very existence of which the preceding excursus has shown to be more than doubtful. Ce qui l’engagea, we are told, de composer cet abrege, ce fut vraisemblement l’envie de se conformer, ou plutot la necessite ou il se trouva de ceder au torrent des philosophes de son temps, qui decrioient la prolixite de leurs predecesseurs, et se piquoient de donner toute la philo sophic en deux ans. Car il est certain par la temoignage de Jean de Sarisberi, qu apres avoir longtemps resisté à ces
- ↑ M. Haureau’s essay, I have lately found, is in the main an en- largement of his article on William of Conches in the twenty-second volume of the Nouvelle Biographic générale, pp. 667-073; 1858.
