The Theater of Hydraulic Machines, Volume II

...which a learned and experienced person, or one who reads a book in its connection, does not need. But so that one does not have to read the entire book and search for everything scattered about, I have, as mentioned, taken the trouble to provide the art-seeker with some understanding at once in an appendix in the form of a discourse, and explained most of it with examples, and also with special figures. For although some have laid the foundation in mechanics quite well, and already know what has been done heretofore, it is often hidden from them what is not feasible. They therefore strive in vain, wasting much time, expending great costs, and even losing their reputation, to achieve something that is not feasible, or is entirely impracticable against nature. Indeed, some want to exert great force with little power, and precisely in such time. In a few words: they seek that which many of their kind have found in thought for ages with terrible costs, worries, and trouble, but which they lost again to their great regret before it could come to effect, namely the perpetuum mobile perpetual motion machine. For whoever seeks to accomplish more with power than our current calculus or theory in mechanics shows, seeks the perpetuum mobile, and will not find it. On an equal-armed balance, a pound or a hundredweight may be in æquilibrio equilibrium with another weight of equal heaviness, but neither can move the other by itself or bring it out of its rest. The moving power must first receive help, or a piece of weight must be added to it in proportion. A perpetuomobiliste perpetual motion seeker, however, wants to take from the moving power itself; he wants, as it were, to lift two with one pound, or set them in motion. One can indeed display such scales with equal arms, on one side 1 pound and on the other 2 pounds, and which can even be swapped; indeed, one can even place two, three, or even four against one pound, and the scale remains horizontal and movable, as such will be shown in statics. However, it is a fallacia deception/fallacy and has no use in the slightest. Thus, my aim and effort is directed solely to teaching him who wishes to be a mechanician: