Of Hugh’s writings we shall be chiefly concerned with the _Didascalicon_, or _Eruditio didascalica_,[11] a brief work whose six books occupy some seventy columns in Migne’s _Patrologia_. It is especially devoted, as its first chapter clearly states, to instructing the student what to read and how to read. On the whole, especially for its early twelfth century date, it is a clear, systematic, and sensible treatise, which shows that medieval men were wider readers than has often been supposed and that they had some sound ideas on how to study. In order to have a basis for systematic study, Hugh describes and classifies the various arts and sciences, mechanical and liberal, theoretical and practical. He is possibly influenced in his definitions and derivations by Isidore’s _Etymologies_, although he seldom if ever acknowledges the debt, whereas he cites Boethius a number of times, but at least his classification and arrangement of material are quite different from Isidore’s. In this description and classification, and indeed throughout the treatise, Hugh seems to display no little originality of thought and arrangement--once he tells us of his own methods of study[12]--although his facts and details are mostly familiar ones from ancient authors and although he of course embodies generally accepted notions such as the _trivium_ and _quadrivium_. [Sidenote: Meaning of _physica_.] To the four subjects of the _quadrivium_ he adds _physica_ or _physiologia_,[13] which he says “considers and investigates the causes of things in their effects and their effects in their causes.” He quotes from Vergil’s _Georgics_, (II, 479-) “Whence earthquakes come, what force disturbs the deep, Virtues of herbs, the minds and wraths of brutes, All kinds of fruits, of reptiles, too, and gems.” Thus _Physica_ is more inclusive than the modern science of Physics, while Hugh evidently does not employ it in the specific sense of the art of medicine, of which the word _physica_ was sometimes used in the medieval period. Hugh goes on to say that _Physica_ is sometimes still more broadly interpreted to designate natural philosophy in contrast to logical and ethical philosophy. His quotation from the _Georgics_ also causes one to reflect on the prominent part played in natural science from before Vergil to after Hugh by the semi-human characteristics ascribed to animals and the occult virtues ascribed to herbs and gems. [Sidenote: The study of history.]