even Porphyry,
writing in his "Isagoge" regarding universals, dared not attempt a
final pronouncement thereon, saying rather: "This is the deepest of
all problems of its kind." Wherefore it followed that when William
had first revised and then finally abandoned altogether his views
on this one subject, his lecturing sank into such a state of
negligent reasoning that it could scarce be called lecturing on the
science of dialectics at all; it was as if all his science had been
bound up in this one question of the nature of universals.

Thus it came about that my teaching won such strength and authority
that even those who before had clung most vehemently to my former
master, and most bitterly attacked my doctrines, now flocked to my
school. The very man who had succeeded to my master's chair in the
Paris school offered me his post, in order that he might put
himself under my tutelage along with all the rest, and this in the
very place where of old his master and mine had reigned. And when,
in so short a time, my master saw me directing the study of
dialectics there, it is not easy to find words to tell with what
envy he was consumed or with what pain he was tormented. He could
not long, in truth, bear the anguish of what he felt to be his
wrongs, and shrewdly he attacked me that he might drive me forth.
And because there was nought in my conduct whereby he could come at
me openly, he tried to steal away the school by launching the
vilest calumnies against him who had yielded his post to me, and by
putting in his place a certain rival of mine. So then I returned to
Melun, and set up my school there as before; and the more openly
his envy pursued me, the greater was the authority it conferred
upon me. Even so held the poet: "Jealousy aims at the peaks; the
winds storm the loftiest summits." (Ovid: "Remedy for Love," I, 369.)

Not long thereafter, when William became aware of the fact that
almost all his students were holding grave doubts as to his
religion, and were whispering earnestly among themselves about his
conversion, deeming that he had by no means abandoned this world,
he withdrew himself and his brotherhood, together with his
students, to a certain estate far distant from the city. Forthwith
I returned from Melun to Paris, hoping for peace from him in the
future. But since, as I have said, he had caused my place to be
occupied by a rival of mine, I pitched the camp, as it were, of my
school outside the city on