Discourse on Mechanics.

And this is as much as I have wished to report casually about the mechanical arts and sciences, as I have by no means set out to explain their fundamental laws. One can easily surmise that this would be a great and immeasurable work, and that anyone who would wish to undertake this according to its worth and necessity would have to write an entire book about it alone. I let it suffice to have merely recounted them and mentioned their distinction to some extent. Anyone who possesses the slightest understanding will be able to surmise their wide-ranging utility for himself.

Since I am now passing over most of the utility and advantage thereof in silence, one need only consider the various water-wheels, the machines moving by springs, the self-driving water-wheels, scooping-wheels, screws, pressure- and suction-works, horse-, wind-, and hand-mills, balances and other scales, as well as the numerous other machines and ingenious devices that must serve not only for utility and convenience, but also for pleasure and enjoyment. Let one consider the various types of ancient war instruments, such as battering rams, storm-roofs, towers filled and prepared with all storm-armament, their ramparts, field-works, arrows, shields, javelins, storm-ladders, petards explosive devices used to breach gates or walls, and all other cannons common to our times; with what utility have they not always been used? What wonders does experience not let us read of them in the protection and liberation of people, walls, and ramparts? And into what terror have people not been cast by them? From which it is to be gathered that we can by no means dispense with the mechanical arts and sciences in times of war or peace.

If we view architecture as one of the most prominent and glorious of all arts and sciences, through which so much is achieved, this would nevertheless be quite small and poor without mechanics. We may grant a master builder all other properties belonging to him, and rob him only of mechanics: he will certainly be able to bring nothing lasting into effect. Be he of ever so good an understanding and sharp insight, a master of painting, a good mathematician, no poor philosopher; let him have made himself familiar with medicine, understand the influence of the stars, have even gathered many pronouncements of legal scholars in abundance, and looked well into all other arts and professions, but be inexperienced in mechanics: such a one, I say, can nevertheless not rightly be called a master builder because the most prominent main part of architecture is lacking to him. For the actual business of building itself rests only upon the laws of Statica statics and Mechanica mechanics, which could be proven by many examples, if I were inclined to be more long-winded here. Yet I will only cite a few of them, from which it is easy to gather that nothing can be achieved in architecture without mechanics.

The temple of Diana at Ephesus was 425 feet long, 120 wide, and stood on 127 columns, each of which was 60 feet high. With this glorious and laborious building, nearly all of Asia spent 220 years, and finally, through the help of mechanics, this wonder was established.

No less famous are the walls erected by Semiramis at Babylon, the circumference of which amounted to 60,000 paces. Their height amounted to 200 feet, and their thickness to 50, and they themselves were furthermore provided all around with 250 towers. This astonishing work was completed by 1,300,000 people in one year, during which mechanics performed its services, particularly by means of various instruments, tools, and machines.