[844] There are considerable discrepancies between the different early printed editions, which differ in length, order of arrangement, tables of contents, and number of chapters. And in the same edition the chapter headings given in the course of the text may not agree with those in the table of contents, which as a rule, even in the MSS, does not fully cover the subject-matter of the text. The different printers have probably used different manuscripts for their editions rather than made any new additions of their own. The following editions are those to which references will be made in the following pages. An edition printed at Cologne about 1480, which I examined at the Harvard University Library, divides the text into only thirty chapters and seems imperfect. An edition of about 1485, which I examined at the British Museum, where it was numbered IA.10756, has 74 chapters, and the headings of its 25th and 30th chapters, for instance, agree with those of the 11th and 13th chapters in the Harvard copy. A third edition of Paris, 1520, has no numbered chapters and contains passages not found in the two earlier editions. As a check upon these printed texts I have examined the three following MSS, two of the 13th, and one of the 14th, century. Of these Egerton 2676 corresponds fairly closely throughout to the edition numbered IA.10756 in the British Museum. Egerton 2676, 13th century, fols. 3-52. BN 6584, 13th century, fols. 1r-32v. Bodleian 67, 14th century, fols. 1-53v, is much like the preceding MS. [845] BN 6584, fol. 1v, “De prologo cuiusdam doctoris in commendatione aristotelis.” See also Digby 228, 14th century, fol. 27, where a scribe has written in the upper margin, “In isto libello primo ponitur prologus, deinde tabula contentorum in libro, deinde prologus cuiusdam doctoris in commendacionem Aristotilis, deinde prologus Iohannis qui transtulit librum istum....” In Egerton 2676, fol. 6r, “Deus omnipotens custodiat regem....” [846] Steele (1920), p. xi. [847] Steinschneider (1905), p. 42, it is true, says, “Ob Joh. selbst das ganze Secretum übersetzt habe, ist noch nicht ermittelt”; but the following passage, cited by Giacosa (1901), p. 386, from Bibl. Angelica Rome, Cod. 1481, 12th century, fols. 144-146v, indicates that he translated only the medical part. “Cum de utilitate corporis olim tractarim et a me quasi essem medicus vestra nobilitas quereret ut brevem libellum et de observatione diete et de continentia cordis in qualibus se debent contineri qui sanitatem corporis cupiunt servare accidit ut dum cogitarem vestre iussioni obedire huius rei exempliar aristotelis philosophi Alexandro dictum repente in mente occurreret quod excerpi de libro qui arabice vocatur ciralacerar id est secretum secretorum que fecit fieri predictus Aristotelis philosophus Alexandro regi magno de dispositione regni in quo continentur multa regibus utilia....”