It was a book of extracts systematically arranged. But
Oudin, too, had only seen the second volume printed with
out date or place about 1474. The same work manifestly
is intended by J. A. Fabricius, when he says of William of
Conches :
Prodiit etiam sub tempus nascentis typographiae Thilosophia eius maior de natuns creaturarum superiorum, sive super opere sex dicrum hbn. xxxin. duo bus maioribus m toho voluminibus rarissime obviis, excusisque sine anni nota locive.
The authors of the Histoire litteraire 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 natitrale. The probable inference is that the first volume of which Possevinus, Fabricius, and the authors of the Histoire litteraire 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 Cousin and others. Even the accurate Haureau, who had the Dragmaticon before him, said in the first edition of Philosophie scolastique, that the Secunda and Tertia Philosophia paraissent avoir ete faits pour venir a la suite de celui que nous venons de nommer, the Magna de Naturis Philosophia; si, toutefois, he adds, ils n en for- ment pas une partie. x It has further been asserted that the great work was largely used by Vincent of Beauvais in his Speculum nattirale ; but all the extracts from William which I have met with in it are taken either from the Philosophia or the Dragmaticon.[1]
- ↑ For instance in book xxxii. 77, Vincent cites the latter as Guilhermus de Conchis without further specification, and then adds a quotation from the Philosophia as Ex libro de natura rerum.
