After acquiring an uncommon reputation at his own university, he
went to Paris, and thence to Cologne, and there died in 1308, at the early
age of thirty-four years. He was called the Subtle Doctor, and found time
to compose works which now fill twelve volumes in folio. See the Lyons
edition, by Luke Wadding, in 1639.
William Ockham was an Englishman, and died about 1347; but the place and
year of his birth are not clearly ascertained. He was styled the Invincible
Doctor, and wrote bitterly against Pope John XXII. We all remember Butler's
account of these worthies:--
"He knew what's what, and that's as high
As metaphysic wit can fly;
In school divinity as able
As he that hight Irrefragable,
A second Thomas, or at once
To name them all, another _Dunse_;
Profound in all the Nominal
And Real ways beyond them all;
For he a rope of sand could twist
As tough as learned Sorbonist."
HUDIBRAS. Part I. Canto I. v. 149.
The Irrefragable Doctor was Alexander Hales, a native of Gloucestershire,
who died in 1245. Amongst his pupils at Paris, was Fidanza, better known by
the name of Bonaventura, the Seraphic Doctor. The controversy of the
Realists and the Nominalists cannot he explained in a note; but in
substance the original point of dispute may be thus stated.
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