216 W. A. WALLACE 



prepare the way for the seventeenth century development, by 

 considering gravitational force and impetus less as the cause 

 of mechanical motion and more as an efect of the motion 

 itself.°^ Theodoric had not yet arrived at this conception, but 

 he perhaps cleared the way for it by eliminating gravity (and 

 its generator) entirely from the realm of efficient causality. 

 In this endeavor, and particularly in his attempt to point out 

 existing confusions between a physical and a metaphysical 

 approach to such problems of mechanics, Theodoric had some- 

 thing distinctive to offer to early fourteenth century physics. 



W. A. Wallace, 0. P. 



Dominican House of Philosophy, 

 Dover, Massachusetts. 



"'' Studien V, pp. 380-382; Sdence of Mechanics, pp. 548-678. 



