DUNS SCOTUS, JOHN, was born most probably about the year 1265. The English, the Scotch, and the Irish, have all claimed him as a countryman. According to one of the Irish accounts, he was born at Thathruon, or Tagbmon, in Wexford ; according to another, in the town of Down, or Dowupatrick. The Scotch say he was a native of Dense in Berwickshire. The English story is, that he was born at a hamlet called Dunston, or Dunstance, in the parish of Emilden, or Embletoa, not far from Aluwick, in Northumberland. Cajaaden con ceives he was called Scotus because descended from Scottish parents. It seems however to be agreed ou all hands that he was chiefly educated in England. Ile is said to have becu found when a boy tending his_ father's cows by two Franciscans who were greatly struck with his intelligence; and by the monks of this order be was first instructed in the elements of learning, and then sent to Merton College, Oxford, of which in due course he became a fellow. He also entered the order of Franciscans. Passing over various stories that are told of him of a legendary cast, we may enumerate in a few lines the authentic events of his life. While yet a student, he is said to have become greatly distinguished for his proficiency iu theology, in logic and metaphysics, in civil and canon law, in mathematics, in natural philosophy, and in astronomy. In 1301, ou the removal of William Varron to Paris, ho was appointed to the theological chair. His prelectious wero attended. by crowds of auditors, tho number of students at Oxford at this time, it is affirmed, execediug 30,000; but many of these, according to Authony h Wood, were more given to habits of dissipation thau to study. In 1397 Duns removed from Oxford to Paris, iu which city ho had on is visit some Limo before distinguished himself in an extra ordinary manner by his defence, in a public disputation, of the doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary. Ile began, we are told, by demolishing two hundred objections to the doctrine, and concluded by establishing it with a cloud of arguments. A writer who um present, Pelhertus a Temeswar, says that he resolved the knottiest syllogisms of his adversaries as Samson did the bands of Delilah. The result was the conversion of the whole university to the doctrine thna demonstrated, and the passing of a regulation that no person should afterwards be admitted to a degree withont swearing to defend the immaculate conception. On this occasion, it is said, there was formally conferred on Scotus the title of the Subtle Doctor (Doctor eel Magister Subtilis), by which ho is commonly distinguished among the schoolnien. He taught in his new chair with as much applause as at Oxford, but ho was not allowed 0 remain long at ('aria. In 1308 ho was ordered by the general of his order to remove to Cologne to found a now university there. On reaching Cologne he was mat by nearly the whole body of the citizens, and drawn into the city in a triumphal car. But his splendid career was now near its close. On the 8th of November, in this same year, he was carried off by a fit of apoplexy. Some accounts make him to have died in his forty-third, others in his thirty-fourth year. Paulus Jovius relates that he was buried before ho was dead, and that it was afterwards found, upon inspection of the grave, that in his misery he had knocked out his brains against his coffin. Another version of the story is, that he was found to have gnawed the flesh from his arms.
Various separate treatises of Duns Scotus were sent to the press soon after the invention of printing, and several of them have been repeatedly printed. At leugtb, in 1639, his collected works appeared at Lyon, in 12 vols. folio, under the title of ' R. P. F. Jeannie Dune Scoti, Doctoris Subtilis, Ordinis Minorum, Opera omnia qute bueusque reperiri potuerunt, colleens, recognita, sloth, scholiie, et commentaries illustrate.; h PP. Hibernia Collegii Romani S. Isidori Professoribus, Jussu et Auspieiis Rmi. T. F. Joannis Baptista) it Companea, Ministri Generalie.' A complete copy of this collection is exceedingly rare. It is dedicated to Philip IV. of Spain, and the editor is Luke Wadding, an Irishman by birth. It does not however, as bas'been often stated, contain all the works of Scotus, but only those designated his 'Opera Speculativa,',,the 'Positive, if they should be completely recovered, having been intended to form a future publication. Tho principal pieces of which it is composed are Questions or Commentaries on the :Sentences of Peter Lombard, and on the physical, logical, and meta physical writings of Aristotle. Thera are also a treatise on Grammar; four took. (forming a volume) entitled 'Reportaterum Parisiensium and a volume of Qutestiones Quodlibitates, the authenticity of which however is doubted by Wadding. The following are enumerated by 1Vadding as the ' Opera Positive' of Scotus :—' Tractatue de Perfee tioue Statuum ' (of doubtful authenticity); 'Lecture in Genesim ; Cornmentarii iu Evangelia ;" Commentarii in Epiatolas Pauli;' 'Sermones de Tempera and 'Sermonea de Saudis.' The admirers of Scotus extol his acuteness and subtlety as unrivalled, and ho has always been accounted the chief glory of the Franciscans, as Thomas Aquinas has been of their rivals the Dominicans. If in his
short life he actually wrote all the works that aro commonly attributed to him, his industry at least must have been prodigious. His fame during his lifetime, and long after his death, was not exceeded by that of any other of the echolastio doctors. From him and Aquinas two opposing sects in theology took the names of Scotists and Thetnists, and divided the schools down almost to the last age. The leading tenet of the Scotiste was the immaculate conception of the Virgin, and they also differed from the Thomists on the subjects of free-will and Om efficacy of divine grace. In philosophy the Scotists are opposed to the Occamists, or followers of William Occam, who was himself a pupil of Scotus, but differed from his master on the subject of Universals, or general terms, which the Seotists tnaintalued to be expressive of real existences, while the Occamista held them to be nothing more than names. Heuce the Scotiste are called Realists, the Occamlets Nominalists. It is n favourite opinion of Baylo's, that this doctrine of the Scotista was nothing leas than an undeveloped Spinozism. (' Diet. Crit,' art. Abelard,' note C, and Andr6 Cisalpio,' note B.) It may L% added that the English term duties' has been commonly considered to be derived from the name of the subtle doctor " perhaps," Faye Johnson, "a word of reproach first used by the Thomists, from Duns Scotus, their antagonist." It is worth noting however that a dolt or a blockhead appears to be a very moderu meaning of the word dunce,' or Duns. It does not seem to have been known in this sense, for instance, to Richard the compiler of the ' Description of Ireland' In Holiushed, who speaks of tha name of Scotus being a term "so trivial and common in all schools, that whose sorpasseth others either in cavilling sophistry or subtile philosophy is forthwith nicknamed a Dune." This was no doubt the kind of reproach originally intended to be conveyed by the epithet. Wadding has prtfixed to his edition of the works of Scotus an elaborate life of the author, which was reprinted at Moue In 12mo in 1611. There is also a 'Tractatun de Jeannie Scot! Vita, &c., Auden) It. F. Joanna Colgano, ordinle Fratrurn Dommonn Hibernomin Paiute,' 12mo, Antwerp, 1655. Both these works, the latter especially, are full of legendary matter, detailed with the moat confiding gravity. DUNSTAN, SAINT, was born of noble parents at or near °testes bury in Somernetahlre, In the first year of the reign of Athelstau, 925. His father's name was Ileorstan ; his mother's, Cynethrstb, or Cyne dryde. Ills earliest instruction in the learning of his time was receil al in the neighbouriog monastery ; but afterwards, under the patronage of his uncle, Athhelm, archbishop of Canterbury, he was introduced at Athelatan's court, where ho passed some years. The jealousy of the courtiers at his superior attainments at length led them to circulate against him a charge of sorcery; and, finding that he had lost the favour of the king, be retired to NVinchoster. Urged by the entreaties and remonstrances of Ilia uncle to become a monk, Dunstan, who is said to have been passionately in love with a young lady of surpassing beauty, for a time strongly resisted; but, visited by a serious illness, which his uncle pronounced to be a manifestation of the divine displeasure at his preference for an earthly bride to the Holy Church, he made a vow to renounce the world. Accordingly, on his recovery, he built for himself, against the walls of the church of Glastonbury, according to the common account, but, as others say, against Winchester Cathedral (Wright, 'Biog. Brit.,' 448), a sort of cell, with an oratory, employing his time partly in devotional austerities, and partly in the exercise of such manual arts as were useful to the service of the church, in the formation of crosses, censers, &c. He is also reputed to have painted, and to have copied manuscripts. His austeri ties procured for him a general reputation for extraordinary sanctity, while he himself believed that be was the object of continual perse cution by demons and evil spirits. The story is well known, how on one occasion the devil came to him at his smithy (for in his cell he kept a forge for tho manufacture of metal articles of ecclesiastical furniture), and brought him a piece of iron which he wished him to forge to a particular form. Dunstan willingly uudertook the task, but soon discovering who his visitor really was, seized him by the nose with a pair of red-hot pincers, as he put his head into the cell, and held him there till the malignant spirit made the whole neigh bourhood resound with his bellowings. Tho story was said to have been told by Dunstan himself to the people who flocked to his cell to learn the cause of the extraordinary noise. It may readily be set down as one of those monkish fictions with which the biographies of the saints were iu the middle ages so profusely garnished.