The Medieval Mind. Henry Osborn Taylor
to recognize them. And at night he followed their courses and marked the place of their rising and setting upon the different regions of his model.”
The historian passes on to tell how Gerbert with ingenious devices showed on his sphere the imaginary circles called parallels, and on another the movements of the planets, and on still another marked the constellations of the heavens, so that even a beginner, upon having one constellation pointed out, could find the others.[368]
In the province of philosophy, Gerbert’s labours extended little beyond formal logic, philosophy’s instrument. He could do no more than understand and apply as much of Boëthius’s rendering of the Aristotelian Organon as he was acquainted with. Yet he appears to have used more of the Boëthian writings than any man before him, or for a hundred and fifty years after his death. Richer gives the list. Beyond this evidence, curious testimony is borne to the nature of Gerbert’s dialectic by Richer’s account of a notable debate. The year was 980, when the fame of the brilliant young scholasticus of Rheims had spread through Gaul and penetrated Germany. A certain master of repute at Magdeburg, named Otric, sent one of his pupils to report on Gerbert’s teaching, and especially as to his method of laying out the divisions of philosophy as “the science of things divine and human.” The pupil returned with notes of Gerbert’s classification, in which, by error or intention, it was made to appear that he subordinated physics to mathematics, as species to genus, whereas, in truth, he made them of equal rank. Otric thought to catch him tripping, and so managed that a disputation was held between them at a time when Adalberon and Gerbert were in Italy with the Emperor Otto II. It took place in Ravenna. The emperor, then nineteen years of age, presided, there being present many masters and dignitaries of the Church. Holding in his hand a tablet of Gerbert’s alleged division of the sciences, His Majesty opened the debate:
“Meditation and discussion, as I think, make for the betterment of human knowledge, and questions from the wise rouse our thoughtfulness. Thus knowledge of things is drawn forth by the learned, or discovered by them and committed to books, which remain to our great good. We also may be incited by certain objects which draw the mind to a surer understanding. Observe now, that I am turning over this tablet inscribed with the divisions of philosophy. Let all consider it carefully, and each say what he thinks. If it be complete, let it be confirmed by your approbation. If imperfect, let it be rejected or corrected.
“Then Otric, taking it before them all, said that it was arranged by Gerbert, and had been taken down from his lectures. He handed it to the Lord Augustus, who read it through, and presented it to Gerbert. The latter, carefully examining it, approved in part, and in part condemned, asserting that the scheme had not been arranged thus by him. Asked by Augustus to correct it, he said: ‘Since, O great Caesar Augustus, I see thee more potent than all these, I will, as is fitting, obey thy behest. Nor shall I be concerned at the spite of the malevolent, by whose instigation the very correct division of philosophy recently set forth so lucidly by me, has been vitiated by the substitution of a species. I say then, that mathematics, physics, and theology are to be placed as equals under one genus. The genus likewise has equal share in them. Nor is it possible that one and the same species, in one and the same respect, should be co-ordinate with another species and also be put under it as species under a genus.’ ”
Then in answer to a demand from Otric for a more explicit statement of his classification, he said there could be no objection to dividing philosophy according to Vitruvius (Victorinus) and Boëthius; “for philosophy is the genus, of which the species are the practical and the theoretical: under the practical, as species again, come dispensativa, distributiva and civilis; under the theoretical fall phisica naturalis, mathematica intelligibilis, and theologia intellectibilis.”
Otric then wonders that Gerbert put mathematics immediately after physics, omitting physiology. To which Gerbert replies that physiology stands to physics as philology to philosophy, of which it is part. Otric changes his attack to a flank movement, and asks Gerbert what is the causa of philosophy. Gerbert asks whether he means the cause by which, or the cause for which, it is devised (inventa). Otric replies the latter. “Then,” says Gerbert, “since you make your question clear, I say that philosophy was devised that from it we might understand things divine and human.” “But why use so many words,” says Otric, “to designate the cause of one thing?” “Because one word may not suffice to designate a cause. Plato uses three to designate the cause of the creation of the world, to wit, the bona Dei voluntas. He could not have said voluntas simply.” “But,” says Otric, “he could have said more concisely Dei voluntas, for God’s will is always good, which he would not deny.”
“Here I do not contradict you,” says Gerbert, “but consider: since God alone is good in himself, and every creature is good only by participation, the word bona is added to express the quality peculiar to His nature alone. However this may be, still one word will not always designate a cause. What is the cause of shadow? Can you put that in one word? I say, the cause of shadow is a body interposed to light. It is not ‘body’ nor even ‘body interposed.’ I don’t deny that the causes of many things can be stated in one word, as the genera of substance, quantity, or quality, which are the causes of species. Others cannot so simply be expressed, as rationale ad mortale.”
This enigmatic phrase electrifies Otric, who cries: “You put the mortal under the rational? Who does not know that the rational is confined to God, angels, and mankind, while the mortal embraces everything mortal, a limitless mass?”
“To which Gerbert: ‘If, following Porphyry and Boëthius, you make a careful division of substance, carrying it down to individuals, you will have the rational broader than the mortal as may readily be shown. Since substance, admittedly the most general genus, may be divided into subordinate genera and species down to individuals, it is to be seen whether all these subordinates may be expressed by a single word. Clearly, some are designated with one word, as corpus, others with several, as animatum sensibile. With like reason, the subordinate, which is animal rationale, may be predicated of the subject that is animal rationale mortale. Not that rationale may be predicated of what is mortal simply; but rationale, I say, joined to animal is predicated of mortale joined to animal rationale.’
“At this, Augustus with a nod ended the argument, since it had lasted nearly the whole day, and the audience were fatigued with the prolix and unbroken disputation. He splendidly rewarded Gerbert, who set out for Gaul with Adalberon.”[369]
Evidently Richer’s account gives merely the captions of this disputation. There was not the slightest originality in any of the propositions stated by the disputants; everything is taken from Porphyry and Boëthius and the current Latin translation of Plato’s Timaeus. Yet the whole affair, the selection of the questions, the nature of the answers, the limitation of the matter to the bare poles of logical palestrics, is most illustrative of the mentality and intellectual interests of the late tenth century. The growth of the mediaeval intellect lay unavoidably through such courses of discipline. And just as early mediaeval Latin had to save itself from barbarism by cleaving to grammar, so the best intellect of this early period grasped at logic not only as the most obviously needed discipline and guide, but also with imperfect consciousness that this discipline and means did not contain the goal and plenitude of substantial knowledge. Grammar was then not simply a means but an end in the study of letters, and so was logic unconsciously. In the one case and the other, the palpable need of the disciplina and its difficulties kept the student from realizing that the instrument was but an instrument.
Moreover, upon Gerbert’s time pressed the specific need to consider just such questions as the disputation affords a sample of. An enormous mass of theology, philosophy, and science awaited mastering, the heritage from a greater past, antique and patristic. Perhaps a true instinct guided Gerbert and his contemporaries to problems of classification and method as a primary essential task. Had the Middle Ages been a period when knowledge, however crude, was perforce advancing through experience, investigation, and discovery, the problems of classification and method would not have presented themselves as preliminary. But mediaeval development lay through the study of what former men had won from nature or received from God. This was preserved in books which had