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 to be studied and mastered. Hence classifications of knowledge were essential aids or sorely needed guides. With a true instinct the Middle Ages first of all looked within this mass of knowledge for guides to its mazes, seeking a plan or scheme by the aid of which universal knowledge might be unravelled, and then reconstructed in forms corresponding to even larger verities.[370]
II