96 RICHARD MCKEON 



solation of Philosophy: eloquence and wisdom. Eloquence is 

 the science of presenting what is known with the proper orna- 

 ments of words and sentences; it is a species of science because 

 all science consists of only these two parts, knowing things and 

 presenting what is known well. Eloquence is not philosophy, 

 nor any part of philosophy, but without philosophy, eloquence 

 is a hindrance rather than an aid. William's division of phi- 

 losophy is Aristotelian rather than Stoic: practical and theo- 

 retical, each in turn divided into three parts, practical into 

 ethics, economics, and politics, and theoretical into theology 

 (the study of incorporeal things) , mathematics (the quad- 

 rivium) , and physics (the study of the properties and qualities 

 of bodies) . The proper order of learning is from the study of 

 eloquence (from grammar through dialectic to rhetoric) to the 

 study of practical problems to the study of theoretic problems, 

 beginning with bodies in physics and proceeding through mathe- 

 matics — arithmetic, music, geometry, astronomy — to the con- 

 templation of incorporeal things and to the Creator in theology. 

 The Philosophy of the World was written, according to 

 William's Preface,*" because he saw so many men arrogating to 

 themselves the name of Master, who have dissolved the union 

 between eloquence and wisdom, who spend their time sharp- 

 ening a sword they never use in battle, and who know nothing 

 of philosophy, yet blush to confess themselves ignorant of 

 anything and, seeking solace for their lack of learning, proclaim 

 to less cautious men that the things they do not know are of 

 little utility. 



The use of elements to organize bodies of knowledge and 

 empirical data continues to employ two philosophical assump- 

 tions: that the invisible things of the world are understood by 

 the things that are made,*^ and that the existence of causes 



*° The De Philosophia Mundi or the Peri Didaxeon sive Elementorum Philosophiae 

 Libri IV has been ascribed to several philosophers and has been published as the 

 work of William of Hirschau, the friend of St. Anselm (Basel, 1531), of the Venerable 

 Bede (PL 90, 1127-78) and Honorius of Autun (PL 172, 39-102). The reference is 

 to Book I, Praefatio (in the Honorius of Autun edition) PL 172, 41-43. 



*^ The inference from visible to invisible, which is used by the pseudo-Clement 



