  Scholars have devoted little attention to William's influence on later writers. Nevertheless, it is clear that he gave rise to no school of thought, and subsequent thinkers seem to have picked and chosen from his works the parts they would accept and the parts they would reject. Thus, William's arguments that the world must have a beginning probably influenced thinkers such as Bonaventure and Henry of Ghent, while his rejection of universal hylomorphism and his metaphysics of being and essence may have influenced Aquinas, who presents similar views. There is also little doubt that some of William's views were the subject of criticism, as for example his apparent denial of genuine secondary causation (see Reilly 1953). The large body of manuscripts in which William's works survive suggests he was being read throughout the middle ages; Ottman 2005, for example, lists 44 manuscripts known to contain On the Universe. William's works were also published in a number of printed editions in the 16th and 17th centuries.