The Philosophy of Roger Bacon

The diameter, which determines distances through the separation of its endpoints, cannot possess distance in the same way because of the nature of contrariety within the diameters themselves. According to what was already stated previously, if the whole circle is contained within the bounded limits of these endpoints from the first point in the same circle. Likewise, regarding those endpoints, it cannot be said to be a circle. Furthermore, this motion which proceeds from the same endpoint back to the same endpoint stands apart from other motion, such as that which goes from one endpoint to another. That motion which is in harmony within the same state of contrariety is that which moves from the East into the West, just as if moving toward the same center and motion according to the same poles.

But this cannot be the case regarding what is broken in the network The Latin 'reti' likely refers to the "rete" or web-like grid of an astrolabe, a common tool for calculating celestial positions in the 13th century. by that which is common, rather than by variety. Instead, it is centrally contrary to be moved toward the center and toward the middle, and not toward the endpoints of the diameter. And because diameters can be infinite in number within the same circle, and therefore the smallest diameters are infinite, they seem to many to be the same. Aristotle Roger Bacon frequently cites Aristotle to ground his scientific theories in established logic. addresses this here in the 10th book of the Metaphysics. Therefore, a comparison is made between the circle and those endpoints, and those diameters. Those which are near the endpoints and the limits in motions are like circles; they are not like that which is external to the circle, but rather relate to the operation and the center and the space within it. Because motions from different endpoints of the diameter have a common goal in contrary terms, and the space between them is distance, so there is contrariety.

Likewise, there is motion near the endpoints which come to them by a straight path original: "per directum", and they do not go to the same endpoints in the same common [path] † to the endpoints from which they began. Consider the motion of fire fire (ignis): In medieval physics, fire was an element with a "natural appetite" to move upward, away from the center of the earth.; it moves from below to above, and it does not tend downward; rather, if it were to come back down, it would be moving against its nature. From above, the same endpoints are contrary.

But the motion from the East reaching toward the West goes through the same distance toward the East, even though it is as if from another motion. It is like that which begins in the East; when it returns to the East, it then proceeds back toward the West from which it came. Just as in these things, there can be a reasoning of contrariety regarding the endpoints.

Likewise, regarding motions near endpoints from which they recede further and further from the starting point a; yet that motion in the whole circle eventually approaches the starting point a more and more. Therefore, they cannot be truly contrary, just as it is said that the forces of motion impede one another; hence, where a movable body is in possession of those motions, it is not driven by a single power nor by many.