ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY. 
101 
In the course of M. Victor Cousin’s researches on the history of phi¬ 
losophy, he was led to examine a MS. of Bacon which existed in the 
library at Douai. He found that it contained a considerable portion of 
the “ Opus Tertium.” A lacuna which existed in this portion was 
supplied from a MS. in the British Museum, and the whole was care¬ 
fully studied by M. Cousin. He was thus led to arrive at several very 
interesting conclusions respecting the life and writings of Bacon. His 
account of the “Opus Tertium,” containing many extracts from the 
original, is to he found in the “Journal des Savants” for March, April, 
May, and June, of the year 1848. On the Introduction to the work, 
M. Cousin enlarges at great length. It gives a general outline of the 
plan of the whole work, and indicates the several subjects which were 
treated in the different parts of it. Among the other contents,—and 
to this I call your particular attention,—it mentions a regular and de¬ 
tailed treatise on moral philosophy. Ho such treatise is found in the 
Douai manuscript, which is imperfect at the end. . But the state¬ 
ment that such a treatise formed part of the “Opus Tertium,” would 
naturally lead us to suppose that the “ Opus Majus” contained a similar 
treatise, for the two works, so far as we can compare them, run parallel 
to each other. M. Cousin, however, puts an end to all doubt on this 
question, by producing several passages of the “ Opus Tertium,” in 
which a seventh part of the “ Opus Majus” is distinctly referred to, as 
containing discussions on moral subjects; and he therefore justly re¬ 
gards it as a fact established by his researches that the edition published 
by Jebb is incomplete, aud that the “Opus Majus,” in its integrity, 
had never been given to the world. 
But thereupon arose a further interesting question, which M. Cousin 
was not in a condition to solve. It had been stated by Bale and Pits 
that Bacon was the author of a Treatise on Moral Philosophy. M. Cou¬ 
sin found, from the “ Catalogi Codicum MSS. Anglise et Hibernise,” that a 
Treatise on Moral Philosophy was actually contained in the Library of 
Trinity College, Dublin ; and, indeed, Jebb himself, while he describes 
in his preface the “Opus Majus” as in sex partes distributum, adds that 
the author “ libros de prognosticis ex stellis et de multiplicatione 
specierum apposuit et Tractatum de Morali Philosophia ad calcem ad- 
junxit .” Thus, as M. Cousin went on to say, the question was raised,— 
can it be that the Treatise on Moral Philosophy, contained in the Dublin 
Library, is really the missing seventh part of the “Opus Majus ”? “On 
voit par la de quelle importance il serait de rechercher le traite manu- 
scrit de philosophie morale, .... car ce traite serait tres-vraisembla- 
blement la septieme partie de P Opus Majus.” And M. Cousin proceeds 
to recommend the examination of this moral treatise, and its publica¬ 
tion, if it should turn out to be what he anticipated, to the scholars of 
the English Universities :—“ Puisse cette entreprise, a la fois utile et 
facile, sourire au patriotisme de quelque savant d’ Oxford ou de Cam¬ 
bridge !” 
My attention was called to these articles of M. Cousin by a very clear 
and well-written summary of his conclusions, which appeared in the first 
vol. v.— proc. soc. p 
