8. Two other works of William of Conches, the Secunda Philosophia and the Tertia Philosophia, are described in the twelfth volume of the Histoire littéraire de la France. They remain in manuscript at Paris; but specimens, some chapters at length, and tables of contents, are printed by i Cousin. The first, k we are told, is a dialogue on anthropology between a master and a disciple; the second, also a dialogue, is an abridgement of the author's system of cosmography, derived from the Philosophia. Had however Cousin been acquainted with the Dragmaticon he would probably have suspected that this was the immediate source, and would have found that D. stands not for discipulus but for dux, the duke of Normandy to whom the work is dedicated. Moreover these works are not abridgements at all. The one is a literal transcript of part of the Dragmaticon, the other is a set of disconnected extracts from it. The latter is taken from different parts of books ii.–vi., and leaves off just before the point from which the former is transcribed. Of course it is impossible to speak with absolute certainty from Cousin's specimens, but the following details of collation suggest a sufficiently plain inference.[1]
The Secunda Philosophia begins with the words Dicendum est, &c., which introduce the section on animals occupying the major part of the sixth book of the l Dragmaticon. The
- ↑ M. Hauréau in his Singularités still clings to the idea of these works being independent productions. I may, however, take leave to doubt whether this distinguished scholar had always the Dragmaticon itself before him. At least it is certain that every reference he makes to the Secunda Philosophia occurs, just as Cousin's do, in the Dragmaticon [e. g. ch. xviii. (Hauréau, p. 252) = Dragm. p. 281; ch. xxx. (Hauréau, p. 252 n. 2) = Dragm. p. 306]: and not in the fourth book of the Philosophia, as M. Hauréau says (p. 241), nor anywhere else in that work. The substance may be there very possibly, though Cousin's excerpts contain much that is definitely not there; but the form is that of a dialogue, and this fact alone decides the point. M. Hauréau speaks (p. 247) of the Dragmaticon as borrowing from the Secunda Philosophia; but when the smaller work is contained verbatim (within the limits of scriptural aberration) in the greater, we need not be long in deciding which is the original and which the extract. With regard to the Tertia Philosophia M. Hauréau says little (p. 248), and does not seem to suspect that it is in fact derived from the Dragmaticon.
