Chapter One: Devices and Desires

In Greek antiquity a machine was any marvellous device or stratagem that worked against nature to accomplish some human purpose or to satisfy some human desire. Aristotle classified mechanics with the more physical of the mathematical sciences, such as astronomy and optics. The Aristotelian Mechanical Problems of the late fourth century B.C. is the earliest known work on mechanical theory, where the general sense of machine was limited mainly to physical devices such as levers and pulleys, boats and oars, and the like. The author of this work, whether Aristotle himself or a close successor, saw mechanics—the study and explanation of machines—as partly mathematical and partly physical, and accordingly devised the mixed principle of circular motion to explain the operation of the balance, which he then applied to the lever and related machines.