The Philosophy of Roger Bacon

They say that between points falling in the same place, a measured distance exists, but not between The author is refuting a specific school of thought regarding spatial points. indivisible points, as is shown here; but this is an error. For we are speaking of points to be marked along this transverse line, and in such things, as long as there is a potential medium original: "potentia erit media"; referring to the space or substance between two points., there will be a length of distance. This is either because of a body or a vacuum A space empty of matter, a major topic of debate in medieval physics. placed between those things which, being placed apart, are distant. It follows that if surfaces were to cut those lines at the same point, then there is no limit to those things which occupy that space. Therefore, it does not follow that one of them has a limit of weight original: "grumā" / "grē", likely referring to mass or gravity. because that which is between them has a limit of weight.

If it is said that the surfaces are divisible between point and point in a division, because two surfaces do not pass through the point of a previous point; but because the surfaces, as divisibles, do not pass through a point, but as mediating things, and this is the depth of the place; and thus they could be joined together through the middle, because no part nor medium has a divisible nature.

Regarding depth, let two points be marked in the middle of two given bodies in the medium, from which points lines are drawn to the surfaces placed above; then they will not be terminated at distant points of the bodies, etc. Because that medium would be the prior medium, and thus they are distant; and because the bodies placed in the medium are such that the lines must tend toward the same point in the center of things. Therefore, when the line is raised, it will be outside. If there is one body, it will be as one point, since it cannot be in the middle of those bodies where they are not distant, and therefore they are not equally distant. These things are in the medium, and therefore they can be drawn to one point in the body, and to two in the divisibles through the medium. If two points are in the middle, they have a division, and through a small division they are one point by itself, and therefore they can correspond to one point.

If it is said that these points and these lines are together original: "simul", meaning occupying the same space or time. because they are in the same body, it has already been said that those things are together which are in the same place. This is said because the "sameness" of a place is used equivocally meaning the word "same" has different definitions here. regarding the diversity of the same place by number. For example, the soul Anima and the body, and the spirit Spiritus and the accident, and the whole and its parts are together in a place. And here we speak of that distinction; and here it happens concerning the continuous and its parts. Otherwise, they are "together," but the place is spoken of through the concomitance The state of existing together or accompanying one another. of two places in the medium. And here we speak of the generation The process of coming into being. of things whose extremities are together. But it is well said that from a point of the earth, one line can descend.