The Authorship of the Summa in Physica Attributed to Robert Grosseteste

Author(s): Richard C. Dales

Source: Isis, Vol. 55, No. 1 (Mar., 1964), pp. 70-74
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society
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70

CARL B. BOYER

mention of Thabit's theorem.12 It is

odd that the history of so striking a
generalization of the celebrated Pythagorean theorem should be shrouded in
so much more mystery than the not
more notable and yet far better known
generalization given by Pappus. We
cannot be certain that the eighteenthcentury publication of the theorem was
independent of Thabit's work, but dependence is rendered unlikely by the
fact that the manuscript containing the
12 There is no such mention, at least, in the
edition of Paris, 1775, which I have used.

theorem remained unedited until Sayili

published the Arabic text and the
Turkish translation in 1958.13 Of one
thing, nevertheless, we can be certain,
and that is that the earliest rediscovery
of the theorem, following the announcement by Thabit, was not an achievement of the twentieth century, for it
had taken place at least by 1790.
13 See Sayili, op. cit., pp. 35-36, note 2. Is it,
however, only a coincidence that Montucla's
presentation of the theorem, like that of
Thabit, immediately follows a proof of the
Pythagorean theorem by simple transpositions
of triangles?

THE AUTHORSHIP
OF THE SUMMA IN PHYSICA
ATTRIBtJTED
TO ROBERT GROSSETESTE
By Richard C. Dales

Two works on Aristotle's Physics fessor S. Harrison Thomson published

have been attributed to Robert Grosse- a note in which he argued, against
teste. One, entitled Commentarius
octo libros Physicorum Aristotelis,

in
is

Baur, that Robert Grosseteste was the

author of the Summa attributed to him
certainly by him.' Concerning the in six of the eight manuscripts of that
other, entitled Summa in octo libros
work.3 After summarizing the bibliPhysicorum Aristotelis, there has been
ographical tradition, Professor Thomsome disagreement, and there remains son replies to Baur's first argument that
some doubt. Ludwig Baur, in his edi- the widely different provenance and
tion of Grosseteste's philosophical unanimity of ascription of the four
works, denied the great bishop's author- manuscripts available to Baur are, if inship of the latter treatise on the grounds ternal evidence permnits, almost deterthat the extant manuscripts of the minative of authorship. He also lists
Summa were not earlier than the fif- four additional manuscripts of the
teenth century, the " Terminologie und Summa, two ascribed to Lincolniensis,
Sprache" differ greatly from those of one not ascribed to anyone, and an
known works of Grosseteste, and the English manuscript of the early fourthought content is that of a period teenth century lacking the first leaf,
much later than that of Grosseteste.2 which may have borne an ascription.
In the December 1934 issue of Isis, Pro- Replying to Baur's second argument,
Professor Thomson pointed out that
* University of California, Santa Barbara.
the terseness of the Summa can be ac"
1 Richard C. Dales,
Robert Grosseteste's counted for by the
nature of the work:
Commentarius in octo libros Physicorum Arisit is a paraphrase, not a commentary,
totelis," Medievalia et humanistica, 1957, 11:
into which the author seems to have
10-33; see also the Introduction to my forth"6scrupulously avoided putting his own
coming edition of Grosseteste's Physics commentary.
thoughts." To Baur's third argument,
2 Ludwig Baur, Die philosophischen
Werke
Professor Thomson
replies that the
des Robert Grosseteste, Bischofs von Lincoln
thought content is strictly that of Aris(Miinster, 1912), pp. 19 ff. I have here borrowed S. H. Thompson's summary of Baur's
arguments from The Writings of Robert
Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln 1235-1253 (Cambridge, 1940), p. 83.

3 S. Harrison Thomson, " The Summa in

.VIII Libros Physicorum of Grosseteste," Isis.
1934, 22: 12-18.

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THE AUTHORSHIP

totle and can hardly have been characteristic of any particular century. The
quotations from Averroes, he says, are
brief and rendered necessary by the
unsatisfactory nature of the Latin translations of the Physics.4

While I was preparing an edition

of Grosseteste's

Commentary

on

71

OF THE SUMMA IN PHYSICA

the

ad quintum dicitur
[folio 120c-D].6

. .

ad 6m dicitur

2) Dubitatur hic de prima diffinicione motus,

utrum sit actus entis in potencia secundum
quod in potencia. Videtur quod non . . .;
item actus et potencia sunt differencie opposite.
. . . Ad primum dicitur quod ens in potencia
dupliciter accipitur: uno modo .... alio modo
ad 2m dicitur quod duplex est actus,
....;
scilicet perfectus et imperfectus . . . [folio

Physics, I compared it very closely to

the Summa to see if there was any corre- 122A-B].
spondence between the works. Not only 3) Hic dubitatur utrum locus sit. Videtur
quod non....
Probacio antecedentis....
Item
did I find no similarities, but I became 20
sic . . .; item locus non continet probatur
convinced that Grosseteste was in all . . ; maior patet et minor ostenditur sic . . .;
likelihood not the author of the 40 quod locus sit immobilis probatur . . .; item
Summa. I should like to present my sic... . Ad primum dicitur . ..; ad 2m dicitur
. .
ad 3m dicitur .
ad 4m dicitur . . .
reasons for this conclusion.
ad 5m dicitur . . . [folio 123 ].
The description of the Summa as an
ab breviacio is by and large correct. 4) Dubitatur hic utrum motus sit in quantitate et qualitate et ubi. Quod motus non sit
Much of the work is a simple para- in
qualitate probatur . . .; maior est Philophrase, especially books I and VIII, but sophi et minor ostenditur per auctorem Sex
it also contains thirteen dubia (or dubi- Principiorum . . .; item quod in quantitate
taciones). Sometimes these are used to non est motus probatur . . ; item quod motus
non sit in ubi videtur ... ; item si in ubi esset
illustrate the structure of Aristotle's motus.
Ad primum dicitur concedendo
argumnent,and sometimes they serve as maiorem ...et ad minorem
dicatur quod qualitas
vehicles of independent thought, so that . . . potest dupliciter considerari . . .: primo
opinions other than those of Aristotle modo . . . secundo modo ... ; ad secundum
are expressed in the work. These are dicatur concedendo maiorem et ad minorem
quod quantitas potest dupliciter conhighly formalized scholastic exercises dicatur
siderari: uno modo . . ., alio modo . . .; ad
which, although they had been de- 3m dicatur concedendo maiorem et ad minorem
veloped to this point, especially at dicatur quod suscipere maius et minus est
Paris, before Grosseteste's death, are duplex . . . ad 4m dicatur concedendo . . .:
wholly unlike the method employed in primo modo . . . secundo modo . . . [folios
any of Grosseteste's well-authenticated 124D_125A].
works.5
This highly formalized technique is
An outline of several of these dubia quite unlike Grosseteste. His scholastic
will give an idea of their nature:
exercises are much freer in form, and
1) Dubitatur de diffinicione nature. Videtur generally avoid the procedure of diquod non sit principium ... ; item quod non viding and subdividing and of making
sit principium motus probatur . . ; item quod distinctions and subdistinctions, which
non sit principium quietis probatur . . .; item was habitual in the generation of
schoquod non sit principium motus illius in quo
est videtur ...
item quod diffinicio sit male lars succeeding him.
That the Summa is a product of the
data videtur . . item videtur quod sit superflua. Huic dicitur quod . . .; ad 2m dicitur schools is evident from its very nature,
... ; ad 3m dicitur . . .; ad 4m dicitur . . .;
from the fairly frequent use of the first
person singular, and especially from
4 S. H. Thomson, Writings, p. 83 n.
the remark on folio 123C in which the
5 See especially Grosseteste's Questio de

fluxu
et refluxu maris, published by E. Franceschini,
Rivista di filosofia neo-scolastica, 1952, 44: 1-11
and Questio de calore, published by S. H.
Thomson, Medievalia et humanistica, 1957, 11:
34-35. On his conservatism in these matters,
see B. Smalley, " Robert Bacon and the Early
Dominican School at Oxford," Transactions of
the Royal Historical Society, 4th series (London), 1948, 30: 13; and " The Biblical Scholar "
in D. A. Callus, ed., Robert Grosseteste, Scholar
and Bishop (Oxford, 1955), pp. 84-88.

author says: " . . . quando aliqua res per

suam essenciam cognoscitur sicut cognosco scolas per visum." This would
necessitate dating the work, if it were
Grosseteste's, definitely before 1235,
when he became bishop of Lincoln, and
probably before 1229, since it is un6 Folio numbers refer to MS Cambridge,
Peterhouse 188.

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RICHARD C. DALES

72

likely (though not impossible) that he

would have prepared a Summa of the
Physics for the Franciscans at Oxford.
So early a date would be hard to reconcile with the advanced form of the
dubitaciones (illustrated above), the
use of the word quidditas,7 and the offhand references to Averroes 8 in the
early part of the work. In fact the use
of Averroes in the Summa differs radically from Grosseteste's use of him in
the Commentary. Professor Thomson
has suggested that the references to
Averroes were necessitated by the inadequacy of the current translations of
Aristotle.9 But of the four (perhaps
five) citations of Averroes, only two can
reasonably be construed as attempts to
clarify the text of the Physics. And indeed in one place near the end of Book
III where the Latin of the Physics is not
clear, the author of the Summa does
not check with Averroes, but makes his
own guess (" dico quod Philosophus
vult quod infinitum non repugnat magnitudini simpliciter sed repugnat magnitudini ut naturale . . ." [folio 122D]).
In the Commentary, Grosseteste does
not use Averroes at all till the end of
Book VII (probably because the earlier
parts of the Commentary were written
before the Moslem's works became
knownW. Averroes is used extensively
in the Commentary, Book VIII, particularly on the perpetuity of motion, a
problem which is stated without com7".
. . sed ad formam sequitur quidditas rei
que non est aliud a re cum quidditas sit eadem
cum re cuius est quidditas. Ergo forma non
est causa. Huic dicitur quod quidditas in rebus
compositis ex materia et forma est aliud a
forma que est altera pars compositi quia in
talibus quidditas includit totum, scilicet materiam et formam" (folio 121A-B). Even if
the chronological problem were not present,
this opinion would be most difficult to reconcile with Grosseteste's doctrine of the plurality
of forms. See Grosseteste's Commentarius in
Posteriora Analytica (ed. Venice, 1494), folio
14A; and R. C. Dales, " Robert Grosseteste's

Commentarius

. . . ,"

pp. 16-17.

The date 1230-1231 (perhaps five to ten

years later for the Physics commentary) for
the introduction of Averroes in Latin Europe
has been fairly well established by R. de Vaux,
" La Premiere Entree d'Averroes chez les
Latins," Revue des sciences philosophiques et
theologiques, 1933, 22: 193-245.
9 S. H. Thomson, Writings, p. 83 n.
8

ment in the Summa. The author of the

Summa, on the other hand, cites Averroes in books I, II, and VI, and not at
all in the last two books of the Physics.
The author of the Summa was very clear
that Aristotle was referring to the perpetuity of the primum mobile.

teste,
quite
here.
some

Grosse-

in the Commentary,10 was not

sure of the philosopher's meaning
He discussed the possibilities at
length and used Averroes in his

discussion.

In addition to the use of Averroes,

there are other major discrepancies between the Summa and the Commentary.

I should like to discuss them in ascending order of importance. Before beginning this, however, we might well
heed Professor Thomson's note of caution that Grosseteste's style varied greatly as the nature and purpose of his
writings varied."1 The Summa was
necessarily a much more concise work,
and Grosseteste had a gift of knowing
what to leave unsaid. Therefore, the
mere fact that the Summa

seems to

ignore some of Grosseteste's pet views

does not necessarily prove that he was
not its author.
Still, we might mention some of
Grosseteste's characteristic views and
argunents which are noticeably absent
from the Summa or are actually inconsistent with it. In Book IV, the Summa's
discussion of the vacuum is so completely different from that contained in
the Commentary that it seems unlikely
the two could have been written by the
same man. Missing from the Summa,
too, is the consideration of the relationship of the sciences of mathematics,
astronomy, and physics, which Grosseteste discussed in the Commentary in
connection with his views on the subordination of sciences.12
Also, the discussion of infinite aggre10 MS Oxford, Bodl., Digby 220, folio 104A;
all folio references to the Commentary are to
this manuscript. See R. C. Dales, " Robert
Grosseteste's Commentarius
11 S. H. Thomson,
" The

15 f., n. 9.
12 Folio
Grosseteste's

88.D*

. . . ," p. 31.
Summa ...,"

pp.

See R. C. Dales, "Robert

Commentarius

. . . ," pp.

19-20

and A. C. Crombie, Robert Grosseteste and the

Origins of Experimental Science, 1100-1700
(Oxford, 1953), pp. 94-95.

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THE AUTHORSHIP

OF THE SUMMA IN PHYSICA

gates, perhaps the most influential and

widely quoted section of the Commentary,13 is completely absent from the
Sumrna. In the Summa, Book III, the
discussion of whether a magnitude can
be actually infinite with respect to both
division and addition (folio 122C-D) is
very unlike Grosseteste.14 The whole
subject is ignored in Summa Book IV
(the book in which the Commentary
treats it in most detail) , but near the
end of Book V, the arguments used
against Aristotle are not the ones which
wterecharacteristic of Grosseteste. Finally, in Book VI the author of the Summa
apparently gives as his own opinion the
view that a continuum cannot be comnposed of indivisibles.15 This would be
contrary to Grosseteste's explicit and
widely quoted views on the subject.16
In the Commentary, shortly after the
beginning of Book II, Grosseteste makes
some very cogent observations on Aristotle's definitions of nature and natural
objects, which would have made excellent material for a dubitacio.17 There
is a dutbitacio in the Summa on the
13 Folios 91-c
and 97-B.
Compare Grosseteste's De luce (Baur, Werke, p. 52) and Comm.
in Post. Anal. (ed. Venice, 1494), folio IIA-6.
He is cited in this by Walter Burely, Expositio
in Physica, liber IV, text comment 102; William of Alnwick, Quaestiones determinatae,
MS Vaticanum, Palatinum latinum 1805, folio
9B,
printed by A. Pelzer in Revue neoscholastique, 1921, 23: 398; Robert Holkot Quaestiones in IV libros Sententiarumn, liber II,
quaestio II, quintus articulus; and in modern
works by A. C. Crombie, op. cit., p. 100, n. 3,
and Anneliese Maier, Zwischen Philosophie
mindMechanik (Rome, 1958), pp. 24-25, n. 16.
14 Compare Commentary, folio 93B.
155" Dubitatur de hoc utrum aliquod continututm componatur ex indivisibilibus. Quod
sic vi(letur. . . . Ad 6m dicitur quod corpus
naturale dupliciter potest considerari, vel secundum quod est naturale vel secundum quod
est quantum. Primo modo contingit dare minimumn et ex talibus minimis potest componi
maximum. Secundo modo non potest dari
minimum quod corpus naturale secundum
quod cst quantum . . ." (folios 125D1126A).
16 The history of this problem, from Grosseteste to Oresme, Albert of Saxony and Marsilius of Inghen, is treated by Anneliese Maier,
Die Vorldufer Galileis inm 14. Jahrhundert
(Rome, 1949), pp. 159-169.
17 He is cited in this connection by Walter
Burley, Expositio in Physica, liber II, text comment 3 and by Duns Scotus, Quaestiones in
libros Physicorum, liber II, quaestiones 2 and 3.

73

definition of nature, but it seems to

have nothing in common with the corresponding section of the Commentary.
One would not expect the treatment
of the four causes to be the same in a
commentary and a summa. There is,
however, a notable discrepancy between these two. In the Commentary,
Grosseteste is dubious about the propriety of considering the absence of a
contrary cause to be a cause in itself
(folio 89B) .18 But in the Summa the
proposition is stated without comment
(" Nota quod idem potest esse causa
contrariorum sub diverso tamen modo
secundum Philosophum sicut presencia
naute est causa solutis navis et absencia
naute est causa subversionis navis . . .
[folio 121A]") . A dubitacio follows, but
it does not take up this question.19
In discussing luck and chance in
Book II of the Commentary, Grosseteste did not use Aristotle's example of
a man's going to the market place and
" by chance " meeting a debtor, but instead used a story of two servants sent
on separate errands by their master
(who does not tell them the real purpose of their mission) ; " by chance "
they come upon an ox in the mire and
pull him out. This example, from
which Grosseteste concludes that " respectu autem prime cause nihil est
casuale vel fortuitum " (folio 89D) , was
borrowed by Duns Scotus in his Quaestiones on the Physics.20

But the Summa

uses Aristotle's example and does not

concur with the Commentary that with
respect to the first cause, nothing is
"by chance."
Much of the foregoing could be explained away, although its cumulative
effect is impressive. One bit of evidence,
however, from Book II of the Summa,
seems to me determinative. In discussing the meaning of " formal cause," the
author states: " Causa formalis est illa
que dat esse rei . . ., verbi gracia,
anima que est forma essencialis dat esse
substanciale corpori animato" (folio
18

R. C. Dales, "Robert Grosseteste's Corn-

mentarius

. . .,"

p. 20.

19 " Dubitatur de hoc quod dicitur quod

causa materialis est causa" (folio 121A).
20 Joanis Duns Scoti, Opera omnia (Paris,
1891), II, 572.

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74

RICHARD C. DALES

120D). Thus the author of the Summa

considered the soul to be the formal
cause of the body. This is so grossly
contrary to Grosseteste'soften-expressed
views on the subject 21 that this statement alone seems to me sufficient to
disprove Grosseteste's authorship of the
Summa.
Professor Thomson's arguments concerning the ascription of the Summa to
Lincolniensis 22 seem to me to be incon-

trovertible. Barring a preponderance

of evidence to the contrary, this should
establish a reasonable certainty of
Grosseteste's authorship. Such a preponderance of contrary evidence does
exist, however, and it seems highly improbable that Robert Grosseteste could
have been the author of the Summa in
octo libros Physicorum Aristotelis generally attributed to him.

21 See especially his De intelligentiis

(Baur,
Werke, pp. 115-116) and Comm. in Post. Anal.
(ed. Venice, 1494, folios 13D_14A).
22 S.
H. Thomson, art. cit., 14-15 and
Writings, p. 83. Although Grosseteste was the
man usually intended by the title " Lincolnien-

sis," it is conceivable that someone else was

meant as the author of the Summa. This possibility is given additional weight by the fact
that none of the eight manuscripts in which
the Summa is found contains other Grosseteste
material.

ROBERT DARWIN'S SPLENDID CHARACTER

By Michael Kelly, M. D.*
In a recent article on Charles Darwin, Gruber and Gruber made the customary uncomplimentary reference to
his father: "Secretly, his sceptical, tyrannical father, freethinker Dr. Robert
Darwin, may have been relieved to see
his unfavored son at one stroke escape
the clutches of the clergy and remove
himself from the family scene for a long

me to digest the conclusion

is to the strong." 4

that the " race

In the first edition of the Voyage of

the Beagle Darwin wrote of symptoms
(today regarded as neurotic) which he
felt while waiting in Plymouth for the
ship to depart: " I was also troubled
with palpitations about the heart, and
like many a young ignorant man, esvoyage." 1
pecially one with a smattering of mediRobert Darwin, F. R. S.2 is one of the cal knowledge, was convinced that I
unlucky men of history. But I am cer- had heart disease." 5
tain his own genial spirit would have
S. Adler 6 has recently pointed out
cared not a whit for this sort of luck, that Charles had a serious illness while
good or bad. His misfortune is the poor in South America. On September 19,
health of Charles, first noticed in 1837.3 1834 he wrote " During the day I felt
very unwell, and from that time till the
CHARLES DARWIN'S ILL-HEALTH
end of October did not recover." 7 He
My father [he wrote in 1841] scarcely seems to had difficulty in returning to Valexpect that I shall become strong for some
paraiso, where he spent several weeks

years; it has been a bitter mortification for

Melbourne
1 H. E. Gruber and V. Gruber, " The Eye of
Reason. Development During the Beagle Voyage," Isis, 1962, 53: 186-200.
2 Leslie Stephen, " Erasmus Darwin " in Dictionary of National Biography (London: Smith
Elder & Co., 1888; reprinted in 22 vols., London: Oxford University Press, 1937-1938), vol.
5, p. 536. Reprint edition cited hereafter as
D. N. B.
3 Francis Darwin,
" Charles Darwin " in
D. N. B., vol. 5, pp. 522-534.
*

4 Francis Darwin (ed.), The Life and Letters

of Charles Darwin (3 vols., London: John
Murray, 1887; reprinted, New York: Basic
Books, 1959), vol. 1, p. 243. Reprint edition
cited hereafter as Life and Letters.
5 D. Hubble, " The Life of the Shawl," Lancet, Dec. 26, 1954, 2: 1351-1354.
6 S. Adler, " Darwin's Illness," Nature
(London), 1959, 184: 1102-1103.
7 Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle
(1845), (London: John Murray, 1845; reprinted, London: Dent, 1955), p. 257. Page
numbers refer to reprint edition.

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