CHAPTER I. 

 PRELUDE TO THE EPOCH OF GALILEO. 



Sect. 1. Prelude to the Science of Statics. 



SOME steps in the science of Motion, or rather 

 in the science of Equilibrium, had been made 

 by the ancients, as we have seen. Archimedes 

 established satisfactorily the doctrine of the Lever, 

 some important properties of the Center of Gravity, 

 and the fundamental proposition of Hydrostatics. 

 But this beginning led to no permanent progress. 

 Whether the distinction between the principles of 

 the doctrine of Equilibrium and of Motion was 

 clearly seen by Archimedes, we do not know ; but 

 it never was caught hold of by any of the other 

 writers of antiquity, or by those of the stationary 

 period. What was still worse, the point which 

 Archimedes had won was not steadily maintained. 



We have given some examples of the general 

 ignorance of the Greek philosophers on such sub- 

 jects, in noticing the strange manner in which 

 Aristotle refers to mathematical properties, in order 

 to account for the equilibrium of a lever, and the 

 attitude of a man rising from a chair. And we 

 have seen, in speaking of the indistinct ideas of 

 the stationary period, that the attempts which were 



