APPEND, vi. 3, The author describes himself at the opening of the
sixth book :
m P p. 210 S q. m g a au em q uae a magistris, dux serenissime, multotiens
audivi, atque omnia quae recordatione usque ad meditationem
memoriae commendavi, et ut firmius verba retinerem (quae
irrevocabilia volant) stili officio designavi, et iam quae per
viginti annos et eo amplius alios docui, adhuc vix plene
et perfecte intelligo, vixque intellecta propriis et apertis
verbis explicare valeo : et unde mihi tarn hebes ingenium,
tarn rnodica memoria, tarn imperfecta eloquentia ? an quia
in patria vervecum 76 crassoque sub acre Nordmanniae
sum natus ? alios affirmare audio non solum minima, sed
etiam maxima, quae nunquam a magistris audierunt, per se
intellexisse, nihilque esse tarn inusitatum, tarn difficile, quod
si sibi ostensum fuerit, statim non intelligant atque expedite
alios doceant.
The passage therefore tells us what William s native
country was, -and we have only to add the concordant
cf. Haurdau, testimony of n all the known manuscripts of the work,
Htt. 246. e which bear any title, to identify the place as a matter of
certainty with Conches; it tells us also the author s age,
as having been a teacher since about 1120-1125, besides
some other particulars about him to which we shall return
hereafter.
4. Walter of Saint Victor in his polemic against the
opinions of Abailard, Gilbert of La Porree, Peter Lombard,
and Peter of Poitiers, written about the year 1180, expressly
mentions, in his fourth book, William of Conches as having
adopted the Epicurean doctrine of atoms : Quae forte
Democritus cum Epicuro suo atomos vocal. Inde Willielmus.
de Conchis ex atomorum, id est, minutissimonnn corporum,
concretione fieri omnia. The passage occurs among the
78 The edition reads Vernecum Vervecum in patria crassoque sub
for vervecum, as though it were a aero nasci.
proper name : the reference, how- M. Haureau had the right reading
ever, to Juvenal, Sat. x. 49, 50, is in his manuscript, and translates
obvious, la patrie des belier.V p. 231. [It
Summos posse viros et magna ex- is found also in the Arundel MS.
empta daturos 377 f. 131 in the British Museum.]
Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/318
This page needs to be proofread.
300
THE DRAGMATICON OF