Roger Bacon

On Astronomy

Roger Bacon says: “ After the things regarding time which seemed necessary have been explained, we must now speak about place and emptiness. Place, in one way is the same thing as its own substance because a surface, according to truth, does not compose another species of quantity besides a surface. Therefore Aristotle distinguishes species of quantity in the 5th book of the Metaphysics, and he says nothing there about place. And Averroes says about that passage, that location does not compose another species of quantity besides the surface; and this is true if we speak about place according to the highest being of it and according to the first and chief definition of place. There are however many meanings of it, and now I want to first pursue a special meaning of it. I say, therefore, that if the end of something having place is examined with regard to itself, where the body which has place ends, this is a surface, and it is named properly and accurately.”

Original Latin