Meli DB Mechanism A Visual Lexical and Conceptual History

Mechanism
Mechanism
A Visual, Lexical, and Conceptual History
Domenico Bertoloni Meli
University of Pittsburgh Press

Published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15260
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Cover art: Valves in the veins. Harvey, Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis (1628). Courte-
sy of the Lilly Library.
Cover design: Melissa Dias-Mandoly
Contents
Acknowledgments
vii
Introduction
ix
Chapter 1: Framing Mechanisms
3
Chapter 2: Mechanism and Visualization
25
Chapter 3: “The Very Word Mechanism”
79
Chapter 4: Mechanisms as Investigative Projects
109
Concluding Reflections
139
Notes
143
Bibliography
161
Index
183
Acknowledgments
Material leading to the first three chapters of this book stems from the A. W.
Mellon Distinguished Lectures in the History of Science I had the honor of
delivering in March 2016 at the University of Pittsburgh. An earlier version of
chapter four was presented in May 2015 at a workshop at the École Normale
Supérieure in Paris. I wish to thank Sophie Roux and the department of history
and philosophy of science at Pittsburgh, especially Jim Lennox, as well as Abby
Collier and all those who offered comments at my oral presentations. I also thank
for useful discussions and comments Colin Allen, Tawrin Baker, Alison Cal-
houn, Tobias Cheung, Antonio Clericuzio, Daniel Garber, Ashley Inglehart, Ro-
berto Lo Presti, Peter Machamer, Bill Newman, Evan Ragland, Bret Rothstein,
Massimo Scalabrini, and Mark Wilson. I am grateful to the anonymous referees,
who saved me from many inaccuracies and encouraged me to rethink structure
and organization of my work. I am also very grateful to Bill Newman and Sophie
Roux, who offered comments and criticisms to an earlier version of my manu-
script. I claim sole responsibility for all remaining errors and inaccuracies.
vii
Introduction
Over the last few decades there has been a considerable growth—perhaps an
explosion—of interest in the notion of mechanism in contemporary science
and the philosophy of science, notably in the life sciences and neuroscience. The
number of recent philosophical studies may even justify talking of an indus-
try, examining the definition of the term and different levels of mechanisms,
from molecular to macroscopic, in a growing range of specific examples from the
science literature. In their seminal paper “Thinking about Mechanisms,” Peter
Machamer, Lindley Darden, and Carl Craver have also argued: “Thinking about
mechanisms offers an interesting and good way to look at the history of science.”
They claim that historians of science have already been writing, “albeit unwit-
tingly,” as a history of the discoveries and applications of mechanisms, but they
also advocate writing such a history in a more self-conscious way.1 However, their
paper has been far more influential among philosophers than among historians
of science.
Mechanism is an attempt to take their claim as a starting point for a histor-
ical investigation based on the early modern period. Overall, the key focus of
our term involved relying on instruments and machines to explain phenomena,
excluding immaterial entities such as the soul and its faculties that had been
prominent in previous accounts. The focus of my study is the time when the
term mechanism started being commonly used and the mechanical philosophy
emerged as a major intellectual player. This suggestive and ambiguous expression
involved such different meanings that Helen Hattab has recently proposed to
talk of the “mechanical philosophies.”2
In a letter of 1637 to the Louvain theologian Libertus Fromondus (1587–
1653), Descartes referred somewhat ironically to his own “Philosophie” as being
“grossiere & Mechanique,” implying a philosophy explaining phenomena by re-
lying on shapes, sizes, and motions: this is the first known occurrence of the
expression. The letter was published in 1659,3 in the same year as The Immortality
of the Soul, in whose preface the Cambridge Platonist and divine Henry More
referred to a “Mechanick” or “Mechanical Philosophy”; unlike Descartes, More
emphasized that natural phenomena cannot be explained by excluding imma-
terial principles.4 Finally, two years later, in Certain Physiological Essays (1661),
and then in several influential works, Robert Boyle adopted and popularized the
expression, which became a hallmark of the new philosophy later in the century.5
ix
x Introduction
Although there is a vast intersection between the notion of mechanism and

the mechanical philosophy, emphasis on the former is often centered on single
problems. In particular, whereas in general the expression “mechanical philos-
ophy” involves a worldview, the term mechanism in several instances shifts the
focus to the explanation of individual phenomena; the latter was often local,
whereas the former tended to be global, so much so that few natural philosophers
accepted it in toto.6 In my perspective focus on the notion of mechanism should
be seen as complementary rather than alternative to the study of the mechanical
philosophy, providing a more detailed analysis: some who opposed the mechani-
cal philosophy as a global intellectual program could and did account locally for
specific processes in terms of mechanisms and, conversely, some who accepted
large portions of the mechanical philosophy often found individual phenomena
hard to reconcile with their overall views. Joining mechanism and the mechan-
ical philosophy enables the historian to provide a fine-grain view, enriching and
problematizing our understanding of early modern concerns and debates.
While addressing the problem historically can be rewarding, it also presents
specific problems that have to be carefully addressed. Reaching a satisfactory
understanding of the notion of mechanism for the period I am studying and later
ones is a challenging historical and philosophical task and is the goal rather than
the presupposition of my work; our notion, together with those of living body
and machine, took different connotations over time.
Chapter one provides an introductory theoretical framework for reflecting on
mechanisms in the early modern period. It emphasizes the need to examine the
notion of mechanism in conjunction with a cluster of other problematic notions
and terms employed alongside it at the time. Then, in order to provide a con-
crete historical example, it moves back in time to Galen, a central figure whose
extensive output and its philosophical implications were thoroughly studied in
the early modern period. Galen’s writings and approach highlight a number of
issues relevant to later debates, such as the problematic nature of the notion of
the soul and its faculties, whether it is material or not, and whether it is mortal
or immortal, and the need to recognize that key ancient and early modern pro-
tagonists, from Galen to Robert Boyle, applied suspension of judgment when
they lacked sufficient evidence to adjudicate the matter. Thus, in many cases
mechanisms and mechanistic approaches were neither dogmas nor anathemas
but working hypotheses and projects worth pursuing without necessarily a pre-
determined answer.
Chapter two investigates the intersection between the notion of mechanism
and the problem of visual representation. The verb to visualize is often used in
the sense of making something, often of an abstract nature, visible to the mind
or the imagination. However, it can also be used in the sense of making visible
Introduction xi
to the eye through several means, including conceptual analysis and technical
devices, such as a microscope, for example. Here I use the verb in the latter
sense, emphasizing the active intervention required to identify mechanisms and
represent them visually. In the early modern period mechanisms were closely
tied to mechanical devices and to the spatial arrangements of their parts: there-
fore, the issue of visual representation is closely intertwined with, though clearly
not identical with, the very notion of mechanism. After briefly reviewing recent
claims about the role of images in early modern Europe and the debate between
David Edgerton and Michael Mahoney on the role of perspective, I focus on a
crucial area, anatomy, in the long century between Andreas Vesalius and Robert
Hooke. In terms of quality, size, and numbers of illustrations, Vesalius opened a
new chapter in the history of anatomical representation; at the other endpoint of
my narrative, Hooke investigated and represented microscopic mechanisms, and
also used the very term mechanism to describe them. His usage of our term leads
us to the following chapter.
The third chapter shifts the focus to a lexical study of the emergence and us-
age of the term mechanism in seventeenth-century Britain, where its appearance
occurred especially early in specific studies as well as in broader philosophical
and theological debates. While of course the concept is not coextensive with
the word, there is much to be learned from this investigation, besides the actual
meaning of the term, including the contexts in which it was used, the identity
and professional affiliations of those who used it, and its contrast class, or the
evolving sets of notions which were seen in opposition to that of mechanism.
In this chapter the chronological span shifts forward, focusing mainly on the
period from circa 1660 to the 1680s and on figures such as Henry More, Robert
Boyle, Henry Stubbe, and Edward Tyson. The term mechanism was employed by
divines and natural philosophers in the context of detailed studies but also phil-
osophical and theological discussions about the types of explanations offered.
Later sections discuss usage and meaning of our term at the turn of the century
in connection with the notion of organism, documenting their shifting meanings
and a growing discomfort in using the term mechanism for the living body, and
very briefly in mid-eighteenth-century France in the context of Denis Diderot
and Jean le Rond d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie.
Chapter four discusses a specific problem instantiating many of the previous
reflections; namely, the issue of fecundation and the early stages of generation in
works by Marcello Malpighi and his contemporaries. Malpighi’s writings involve
visual, lexical, and conceptual issues echoing those discussed in the previous
chapters. His prominent position on the anatomical stage in the second half of
the century, the exceedingly problematic issue of generation, and his outline of
the emergence of a self-making machine make this study highly relevant to the
xii Introduction
previous discussion. I am especially interested in the bold attempts to provide

mechanistic accounts of the processes involved, despite their being at the limit
of what the microscope could reveal, and often beyond it, well in the realm of
speculations. Such speculations, however, can be especially helpful in revealing
contemporary perspectives and assumptions. In line with my previous reflec-
tions, I seek to offer an intellectual contextualization including contemporary
scholars such as William Harvey, Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, Hooke, Boyle, and
Malpighi’s Bologna rivals.
A final section provides a synthetic analysis putting previous reflections un-
der a sharper lens.
Mechanism
Chapter 1
Framing Mechanisms
I wish to set out my investigation with some preliminary reflections on the mean-
ing and usage of the notion of mechanism in the early modern period. Philo-
sophical concerns related to the notion of mechanism present many conceptual
problems in their own right, though addressing the topic historically adds several
specific issues to do with the changing meaning and context of usage of the term
and its place in the constellation of related notions and concepts current at a
time. My concern in this chapter is with how we are to talk about mechanisms,
machines, and the mechanical philosophy more broadly in a historically mean-
ingful way, one that is sensitive to these changing horizons. Of course, in no way
do my reflections cover the wealth of themes and debates emerging from the
historical sources. However, I hope that they could be applied to larger domains
and that others may find them helpful in their own investigations.
I start from what I call the problem of labeling; namely, the study of how the
term mechanism and its cognates can be used in historical narratives. I consider
three strategies involving increasing nuance and sophistication: the first seeks
to define the term accurately once and for all, providing normative conceptual
clarity. This may be helpful in some respects; since meanings and contexts were
in a state of flux, however, it may be helpful to adopt a more historically sensitive
approach, involving not only the notion of mechanism in isolation, but also what
we could call its contrast class, which shifted over time. A “mechanism versus
nonmechanism” approach, too, however, while helpful in some regards, may
work as a straitjacket, because over time our subjects held a range of views that is
not best captured by simple dichotomies. Hence it may be appropriate to move
away from a dichotomous approach and to consider both a broader spectrum of
philosophical positions and a broader set of terms or notions, such as organism,
for example.
In order to provide a more concrete and especially rich historical example, I
review the positions Galen of Pergamon held at different times in his life on a
3
4 Framing Mechanisms
number of issues to do with the soul and its faculties, as well as the fundamental
differences between art and nature, technē and physis. At first the move to Galen
in an essay focusing on the early modern period may seem surprising. However,
Galen was a prolific and profound investigator both in anatomy and philosophy
and is a valuable source for our reflections; moreover, his works circulated widely
and were the focus of extensive debates throughout our period.
The last section identifies a number of tensions in the mechanistic program,
notably between definitions and statements in principle versus practice and con-
crete accomplishments; between different levels of mechanistic explanations,
whether limited to macroscopic dimensions or aiming at microscopic ones; in
relation to shifting understanding of the term; and between imperfect human
machines versus infinitely more complex and perfect divine ones. These tensions
reinforce the move away from a simple dichotomous approach and point to the
need for taking into account a wider spectrum of theoretical perspectives, paying
attention to actors’ categories and practices.
The Problem of Labeling

Several philosophers of science have sought to provide a conceptually adequate
definition of the term mechanism, one addressing systematic concerns and cap-
turing at the same time scientific practice. In their classic paper, Machamer,
Darden, and Craver have argued: “What counts as a mechanism in science has
developed over time and presumably will continue to do so.” Their starting point
is Galileo’s reliance on the Archimedean tradition and simple machines, leading
to “the mechanical philosophy.” In later centuries chemical and electrical phe-
nomena were added to the mix: “What counts as acceptable types of entities, ac-
tivities, and mechanisms change with time,” and the trend continues even today.1
The problem with some philosophers seeking to project a timeless defini-
tion onto the past is that not only the sciences and available machines but also
meanings and practices shift in subtle ways in relation to broader changes in
philosophical perspectives and worldviews. Over time, all such transformations
can result in dramatic differences: today explanations relying on mechanism, es-
pecially those found in the life sciences, are often contrasted with lawlike expla-
nations, which are more commonly analyzed in the philosophy of physics. In the
early modern period, however, this was not the case. While most scientists today
would take it for granted that physiological processes would be of a chemical and
physical nature, in the seventeenth century this was the key issue at stake and
several physicians and natural philosophers would have been reluctant to accept,
or would have flatly denied, that complex processes like generation would occur
without some immaterial guiding principle or agent—whether located in the
body or more broadly in nature.
Framing Mechanisms 5
In one among his numerous publications on mechanism, Discovering Cell

Mechanisms, philosopher William Bechtel provides a general definition of our
term: “A mechanism is a structure performing a function in virtue of its com-
ponents parts, component operations, and their organization. The orchestrat-
ed functioning of the mechanism is responsible for one or more phenomena.”2
Here the musical metaphor emphasizes the coordinated spatial and temporal
organization of the components, though in most cases this orchestra would be
playing without a conductor beating the time and ensuring the timely entry of
its members. Earlier in the same work Bechtel states: “The key to the mecha-
nistic approach was not the analogy of physiological systems to human made
machines but the quest to explain the functioning of whole systems in terms of
the operations performed by their component parts.”3 Bechtel has put forward a
perfectly legitimate normative claim here. My concern is whether his contention
is a useful starting point for a historical analysis. A few pages later Bechtel moves
to some historical examples and provides the specific example of the heartbeat to
exemplify his point. Bechtel seems to suggest that Harvey’s understanding of the
heartbeat was mechanistic, because it relied on the heart’s component parts, such
as ventricles and valves: “William Harvey had already offered his own mechan-
ical pump model for the circulation of the blood. . . . Once Harvey established
that the blood circulated, the need for a pump to move blood was recognized and
the functioning heart was identified as the mechanism responsible for this phe-
nomenon.”4 It is not clear from these passages whether Bechtel would attribute
the notion that the heart as a whole is a mechanism to Harvey (1578–1657), or
only that some aspects of its action can be seen as such. As is well known, Harvey
believed in a “pulsative” faculty of the soul responsible for its contractions, which
by his own standards was nonmechanical and immaterial.5
In a different passage Bechtel suggested a dichotomy: “Aristotelian philoso-
phy in particular advanced an anti-mechanistic conception of nature. It empha-
sized telos, the end state to be achieved by entities of nature, and the form, which
resided in bodies, and determined their nature and what they did.”6 Here mech-
anism is contrasted with teleology, though this dichotomy was typical of differ-
ent times, such as the nineteenth century more than the early modern period,
when—with the notable exception of Descartes and some of his associates—
most mechanistic anatomists and natural philosophers, from Nicolaus Steno to
Robert Hooke and Robert Boyle, accepted a teleological notion of mechanism
seeing the body as a God-created machine. For Descartes laws of nature are due
to God; the rest—including the elaborate organization of animals and the hu-
man body—follows from them.7
In a later passage Bechtel presents seemingly tortuous claims about the French
anatomist Xavier Bichat (1771–1802):
The significance of organization for biological systems was brought home in the
nineteenth century by challenges from biologists who denied that mechanisms
could account for the phenomena of life. These biologists, known as vitalists, high-
lighted ways in which biological systems function differently than non-biological
systems. Xavier Bichat (1805) is an important example. In many respects, Bichat
was pursuing a program of mechanistic explanation. He attempted to explicate the
behavior of different organs of the body in terms of the tissues out of which they
were constructed. He decomposed these organs into different types of tissues that
varied in their operations and appealed to the operations of different tissue types to
explain what different organs did. But when Bichat reached the level of tissues, he
abandoned the mechanistic program.8
In fact, Bichat was opposed to what were generally seen as mechanistic explana-
tions and distinguished among tissues based on their vital properties; physical
properties are proper to matter, while vital properties disappear with death. At
the time the doctrine of vital principles or forces, also called vitalism, and mech-
anism were routinely contrasted, so the claim that “Bichat was pursuing a pro-
gram of mechanistic explanation” seems curiously anachronistic. Bichat thought
that the activity of organs could not be understood simply by relying on the phys-
ical properties of their component parts without attending to the vital properties
of those parts. He actively opposed the mechanistic program because he deemed
it erroneous.9 By the same token, if the defining feature of a mechanism is that
it operates “in virtue of its components parts,” Bechtel should argue that Aris-
totle and Galen too, despite their teleology, in crucial respects were “pursuing a
program of mechanistic explanation” because they “attempted to explicate the
behavior” of bodies in terms of the organs “out of which they were constructed.”
While Bechtel’s approach may be adequate for systematic concerns and analyses
of the role of mechanism in biology, more sophisticated tools are needed for a
meaningful historical analysis.
Although reaching a historically sensitive understanding of the notion of
mechanism is the goal rather than the presupposition of my investigation, this
may be an appropriate place to provide some general criteria and suggest a pro-
visional working definition. The notion of mechanism acquired different conno-
tations over time, first encompassing and then rejecting teleology, for example.
If a definition has to be historically useful it has to be historically sensitive. The
problem with Bechtel’s emphasis on components and dismissal of the analogy
with artificial machines is that it does not reflect the historical actors’ perception.
Take for example Steno’s discussion of the brain, in which the notion of machine
is so intertwined with the idea of taking it apart in order to figure out how it and
its components work that any idea of separating the two appears fraught with
difficulties: “Now since the brain is a machine, we should not hope to find its
artifice [artifice] by other ways than those one uses to find the artifice of other
machines. There is therefore nothing left to do besides what would be done to
any other machine, I mean to dismantle piece by piece all its components [res-
sors (sic)] and consider what they can do separately and together.”10 Moreover, in
the tradition often characterized as “vitalist,” living organisms involve chemical
and physical processes differing from those unrelated to life, but they still have
components—such as tissues, for Bichat. But according to Bechtel organisms
and even individual organs would invariably be mechanisms, while the historical
actors would have firmly opposed such a view as they would have contrasted
vital properties with mechanism. Moreover, the notion of ”vitalism” has a com-
plex history deserving a careful study: the term entered philosophical discourse
around 1800 and was used immediately afterward in a highly charged political,
religious, and philosophical atmosphere making it ill suited to being employed
unproblematically for earlier times—with regard to both the role of the soul and
the existence of a unitary vital principle as opposed to a multitude of individual
forces.11 In conclusion, in this respect—though not necessarily from a contem-
porary philosophical perspective—dismissing the analogy with machines seems
highly problematic.
For my present purposes, by mechanism I understand a material structure or
an object, whether macro- or microscopic, whose operation depends exclusively
on the spatial arrangement and motions of its component parts. Its mode of op-
eration can be characterized as broadly mechanical, or akin to that of artificial
machines, by which I include physical and chymical processes, as they were un-
derstood in the early modern period, provided they could actually or plausibly be
given a mechanistic or machinelike account—though plausible and even widely
accepted accounts could also be contentious.12 An actual mechanism would be
a fish’s air bladder, whose operation would make it float or sink depending on
the amount of air it contains according to Archimedean hydrostatics. A plausible
mechanism would be the glomerulus in the kidneys, a structure whose operation
would seemingly be the filtration of urine from arterial blood—though while the
structure was identified through the microscope, its mode of operation was not
proven empirically.13
A New Look at Mechanisms

A first step in a new direction involves a more careful analysis of our term. In
Discipline and Experience Peter Dear has reminded us of the historical nature of
the art/nature distinction and that “such categories as ‘art,’ ‘nature,’ and ‘ma-
chine’ are mutually interactive: their meanings change as their relationships are
reconfigured.” While discussing the statement “the world is a machine,” Dear
refers to the work of philosopher Mary Hesse, among others, supporting her view
“that a metaphor is not merely descriptive of one concept in terms of another,
but becomes constitutive of the meaning of both.”14 In light of these comments,
it seems appropriate to look at the notion of mechanism not in isolation but to-
gether with changing notions of nature and machine and also with what could
be called its evolving contrast class, including: in the early modern period facul-
ties of the soul stemming from a classical background relying on Aristotle and
Galen; in the eighteenth century, especially from the second third, vital proper-
ties relying not on immaterial souls but specific of living matter, which would
differ from standard chemistry and physics; teleological explanations for part of
the nineteenth; and lawlike explanations from the mid-twentieth, inspired by
a philosophical outlook dominated by physics. Each of these periods would be
worthy of a specific study in its own right. This schematic and crude periodiza-
tion is not meant to pinpoint philosophical positions with chronological accu-
racy but to highlight the shifting intellectual horizons within which our term
was framed and conceptualized. Joining a definition of mechanism with that of
its contrast class presents several advantages to a more historicist analysis while
avoiding the pitfalls of adopting a definition and projecting it into the past with
scant regard to the historical actors’ approach.
However, also having recourse to the notion of contrast class could be prob-
lematic, especially in dealing with the early modern period. The danger is that of
seeing a complex intellectual situation in dichotomous terms, lumping together a
wide range of positions that should be carefully analyzed in their own right and
distinguished from each other. I consider three issues: the first is the interpre-
tation of a number of problematic notions intersecting the understanding and
definition of mechanism; the second can be characterized as “suspension of judg-
ment,” namely the recognition that on at least some occasions, some seventeenth-
century scholars expressed doubt and uncertainly over specific issues and saw
mechanistic interpretations more like a project or even a question rather than
like a settled matter; lastly, I will address the issue of what I call global versus
local accounts, highlighting the need to consider both perspectives if we want to
reach a balanced view.
In some circumstances authors used ambiguous terms whose meaning was
unclear and which may have been interpreted differently by their contemporar-
ies; expressions like “active volatile particles” could mean very small particles
that are very mobile in view of their diminutive size, but it could also mean
particles qualitatively different from other forms of matter in that they cannot
be brought to rest because they are endowed with a special activity. Likewise, the
notions of “ferments” and “active principles” follow the ambiguity of chymical
processes: one could interpret them strictly mechanistically, as Descartes did,
but they could also have different connotations stemming from their Paracelsian
and Helmontian origins and implying an intrinsic activity in matter or the pres-
ence of immaterial principles.15 Similarly, the expressions “seminal principles”
and “plastic powers” could refer to an immaterial property related to the process
of generation, but they could also be “mechanized,” as a shorthand for a series
of mechanical processes associated with the motion and textures of portions of
matter of different sizes, as we are going to see in the final chapter. Many natural
philosophers had recourse to plastic powers in discussing the formation of living
organisms and implying finality, though both aspects were missing in Robert
Hooke’s usage of “plastick virtue” in discussing snowflakes.16 And lastly, even
the notion of soul could refer to an immaterial principle, a material one, or a
combination of the two.17
An additional interpretative problem stems from what could be characterized
as “suspension of judgment.” Many early modern authors were painfully aware of
the limitation of their knowledge and of the fact that in many instances plausible
explanations, whether mechanistic or not, were unavailable. Of course, at times
suspension of judgment could be a tactical move, though at least at times it seems
legitimate to take it as genuine. In such circumstances a cautious author such as
Robert Boyle, for example, could offer a general interpretative framework while
“black-boxing” the specific problem until all the details had been clarified—if
they could be; this is the strategy he employed with regard to atomism versus the
infinite divisibility of matter, by refusing to adjudicate the issue and talking of
the corpuscular philosophy instead, which often sufficed for the issues at hand.
Moreover, suspension of judgment could have genuinely different implications:
in some cases, authors had already accepted a mechanistic framework; there-
fore, the issue was one of determining which specific mechanisms were at play.
Borelli, for example boldly affirmed the mechanical nature of several processes,
such as the filtration of urine in the kidneys, even when he had no precise idea
how they actually worked and could only propose plausible analogies.18 In other
cases, however, the mechanistic framework was in question, perhaps even looked
implausible; therefore the issue was to decide between a mechanistic and an al-
ternative account, possibly based on the role of the soul and its faculties, or on
the belief that nature followed different laws in processes occurring in living
organisms, compared to those of standard physics and chemistry.
Lastly, often historians have privileged authors’ general worldviews over
their explanations of specific processes. The mechanistic program is meant to be
comprehensive, involving all phenomena in nature and specifically bodily pro-
cesses, rather than piecemeal, about this or that case; thus, if our authors reject
that specific processes would occur mechanistically, they would be antimech-
anists. The issue of which natural philosopher would truly be a mechanist is a
long-standing one in the history of philosophy; recently Daniel Garber has ad-
opted this approach in assessing a number of major seventeenth-century figures.19
This approach, however, obscures the progressive identification of mechanisms
in specific areas: after all, to offer a mechanistic perspective involves not only
making a grand philosophical statement but also providing detailed accounts of
specific phenomena—such as, just to mention a few notable cases in the history
of mid-seventeenth-century anatomy, the operation of the valves in the heart and
in the veins, the pulsation of the arteries, or the motion of chyle in the thoracic
duct and of lymph in the lymphatics.
Knowledge of unidirectional valves dates from antiquity, when Erasistratus
described the valves in the heart in terms echoing those used for recent techno-
logical devices, such as a two-chambered water pump equipped with four sets of
unidirectional valves invented by the engineer Ctesibius, as Heinrich von Staden
has shown;20 the explanations of the role of the valves in the veins and the pul-
sation of the arteries were due to Harvey: in the former case, he compared the
valves to sluices in rivers and performed experiments with a probe in a cadaver,
showing their role in allowing unidirectional flow toward the heart; in the latter
case, he repeated Galen’s difficult experiment of the reed in the artery—tying a
portion of an artery to a reed inserted into it—and challenged his interpretation
that the arteries pulsate because of a faculty transmitted by the heart, arguing
instead that they have a purely passive mechanical role and expand because of
the impulsion of blood like inflated bags or gloves. As Peter Distelzweig has
recently reminded us, Harvey’s overall views were emphatically not mechanistic
and his limited mechanistic accounts were part of an overall neo-Aristotelian
and neo-Galenic approach: the example of the pulsation of the arteries “is not
an instance of a systematic effort to eliminate Galenic Faculties.” In this specific
instance, however, Harvey did refute Galen’s account based on the transmission
of the heart’s pulsative faculty: here it is helpful to look at his philosophical views
as a whole as well as at his explanation of individual local mechanisms.21
Unlike Harvey, Jean Pecquet was a mechanist anatomist who provided an
account of the motion of chyle in the thoracic duct without having recourse to
what he considered inexplicable attractions, relying instead on physical notions
involving the “elatery,” or elasticity, of the fibers and vessels due to respiration and
digestion. Thus, one could say that he envisaged a mechanism involving chyle
moving from its receptacle between the kidneys, through the thoracic duct, to
the subclavian vein, where it enters the bloodstream; valves throughout the tho-
racic duct prevent backflow, while valves in the jugular veins prevent chyle from
entering the vena cava—thus those valves would relate to the chyliferous vessels.22
The risk of privileging the global approach over the local one is to overlook
the substantive shift from accounts relying overwhelmingly on the faculties, as
with many derived from Galen’s On the Natural Faculties, for example, to those
relying largely or even overwhelmingly, though not exclusively, on mechanisms;
both global accounts, strictly speaking, would be nonmechanistic, though this
approach may hide a huge shift from faculty-oriented to mechanistic types of
explanation.
These reflections highlight the problematic nature of a strictly dichotomous
perspective and call for a more nuanced approach. Moreover, while it is important
to reconstruct an author’s overall perspective, it seems also rewarding to choose
as one’s focus a specific problem and the way different investigators addressed it.
I will revisit these claims, first by taking a look back at Galen’s opinions and then
by examining a number of tensions in the early modern mechanistic program.
Intermezzo: Galen of Pergamon

In the early modern period Galen’s status was such that his views would have
been widely known and highly influential on Harvey, for example, and the entire
anatomical tradition; interpreting his writings was a crucial aspect of the dispute
between Giovanni Girolamo Sbaraglia and Marcello Malpighi, which started
around 1690 and ended after Malpighi’s death in the early 1700s.23 My aim here
is not to offer novel perspectives on Galen but more modestly to survey some of
his opinions in relation to some of the themes we have examined so far, so they
can serve as a term of comparison for later views. We are going to encounter
limited examples of mechanistic explanations, key terms whose meanings could
shift in significant and perhaps even dramatic ways, and cases of suspension of
judgment, when Galen—by no means a shy or modest man—candidly admitted
that despite extensive investigations, he had no answer.
Galen’s views were uncompromisingly teleological; he consistently opposed
the atomists’ notion that chance played any significant role in nature: at times he
refers to a demiurge, other times to nature, even in the same text, such as the last
book of On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body (De usu partium), leaving read-
ers to wonder what exactly he meant.24 Galen also opposed mechanistic views,
whereby nature would operate as in artificial machines; his understanding of
bodily processes relied overwhelmingly on nonmaterial faculties of the soul or
of nature.
Even so, it is possible to identify in his writings examples of specific localized
processes working mechanically, though admittedly they take a minor role. On
the Natural Faculties (De naturalibus facultatis) is one of the most explicit attacks
on the views of the anatomist Erasistratus (3rd century BCE) and the physician
Asclepiades of Bithynia (1st century BCE), even by Galen’s rather brash and ag-
gressive standards. In it, Galen attacks mechanistic views forcefully, arguing in
favor of the notion that nature operates through the faculties of genesis, growth,
and nutrition; her operations cannot be imitated by human art, and there is a
radical distinction between nature’s and human productions. Galen presents two
examples that at first seem to exemplify growth, though they do so only decep-
tively and ultimately unsuccessfully: children playing with pig bladders, heating
them in the ashes of a fire to make them grow, do not produce real growth, be-
cause the bladders lose in thickness what they gain in surface. Similarly, weaving
too might simulate growth, though in reality real growth involves what is already
there, a liver is already a liver before growing; by contrast, a wicker basket is not
a basket until it is completed.25
Yet even in On the Natural Faculties, Galen discusses instances of processes
occurring without any action of the faculties, mechanistically, such as prevent-
ing the flow of fluids through mechanical obstruction, deglutition, or by purely
physical means, such as attraction due to nature’s repugnance of empty space or
horror vacui, as claimed by Erasistratus.
In the case of the kidneys and ureters Galen adopts different types of ex-
planation: in his opinion the kidneys draw urine not mechanistically through
filtration but through the action of the faculties by sympathetic attraction; by
contrast, the unidirectional flow of urine from the kidneys to the bladder is due
to the mechanical arrangement of the parts, specifically the angle with which
the ureters are inserted in the bladder and a membrane preventing reflux, with
an arrangement that some seventeenth-century anatomists, including Harvey,
described as being “like a valve.” Galen showed that urine flows from the kidneys
to the bladder with a vivisection experiment in which he applied a ligature to the
ureters, which led to the accumulation of urine between the ligature and the kid-
neys. He also proved that the reflux of urine to the kidneys occurred neither in a
living nor in a dead body through an experiment in which he applied a ligature
to the penis, showing that even in such circumstances urine did not flow back.26
In the case of deglutition Galen argued that the stomach has two types of
fibers, straight and circular: straight fibers attract; circular fibers do not. The in-
testine and the esophagus have only circular fibers that exert no attraction. Galen
supports this claim by a rather unpleasant experiment relying once again on a
dead body: deglutition occurs “mechanistically,” as when matter goes through a
narrow passage, as one can show by pouring water into the throat of a cadaver:
For what alone happens, as Erasistratus himself said, is that when the upper parts
contract the lower ones dilate. And everyone knows that this can be plainly seen
happening even in a dead man, if water be poured down his throat; this symptom
results from the passage of matter through a narrow / channel; it would be extraor-
dinary if the channel did not dilate when a mass was passing through it. Obviously
then the dilatation of the lower parts along with the contraction of the upper is
common both to dead bodies, when anything whatsoever is passing through them,
and to living ones, whether they contract peristaltically round their contents or
attract them.27
The dead body retains its basic structure for some time, enabling Galen to use it
not simply in order to investigate the arrangements of the parts, as in anatomy,
but as an experimental apparatus to show that certain processes are not necessar-
ily associated with life and the faculties—in this case attraction—but result from
the conformation and features of the parts. The cadaver appears here as an object
sui generis with an ambiguous status, because it is no longer a human body, yet
it is not artificial either, like a human-made machine; thus, in some very specific
respects creations of nature and art can behave similarly.28
In a later passage Galen argues that there are two types of attraction: that
of bellows, which is based on the notion of horror vacui whereby a vacuum gets
filled and which can be seen as mechanical; and that of the magnet, which is due
to the “appropriateness of quality” and is more akin to selective attraction typi-
cally found in bodily processes. Despite obvious differences with living bodies,
Galen finds the magnet an especially appealing example of selective attraction,
one that cannot be explained by means of Epicurean atoms but that provides
powerful empirical evidence of the processes he envisages in the body. The scarce
attraction of food by the arteries which go to the stomach and the intestine is an
example of the process based on horror vacui, this being the reason why so little
nutriment goes from the stomach to the arteries, because this type of attraction
works only with lighter matter; namely, only the scarce, more refined nutriment:
These arteries cannot get anything worth speaking of from the thick, heavy nutri-
ment contained in the intestines and stomach, since they first become filled with
lighter elements. For if you let down a tube into a vessel full of water and sand,
and suck the air out of the tube with your mouth, the sand cannot come up to you
before the water, for in accordance with the principle of the refilling of a vacuum
the lighter matter is always the first to succeed to the evacuation.
It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that only a very little [nutrient matter]
such, namely, as has been accurately elaborated—gets from the stomach into the
arteries, since these first become filled with lighter matter. We must understand that
there are two kinds of attraction, that by which a vacuum becomes refilled and that
caused by appropriateness of quality; air is drawn into bellows in one way, and iron
by the lodestone in another.29
Here Galen accepts that the horror vacui of Erasistratus does occur in the body in
special circumstances, though Erasistratus would wrongly generalize such limited
examples to all types of attraction. As Sylvia Berryman has pointed out, there are
further comparisons between body parts and artificial machines, such as tendons
and threads used in marionettes, articulation joints and pulleys, the spine and
a ship’s keel, the skull and a helmet, and connecting bones with serrated saws.30
If we now move to some of Galen’s key notions, we see that in some instances
they present major ambiguities. The term dunamis, for example, usually translat-
ed as “faculty,” plays a fundamental role in Galen, despite the fact that some of its
defining features are problematic and mysterious. The term was used by Aristotle
in relation to the soul, understood as the form of living bodies, both animals and
plants: faculties would indicate the powers, activities, or capacities of the soul. In
Aristotle’s time the nervous system had not been properly identified and Aristotle
attributed a key role to the heart, the brain being mainly a refrigeration system,
larger in humans than animals, and in men than women, because humans are
hotter than other animals, and men than women.31
The situation changed with the anatomical discoveries made in the third cen-
tury BCE at Alexandria. Galen relied on these transformations: On the Natural
Faculties distinguished between faculties of the soul, related to perception and
motion—which would pertain to animals endowed with a nervous system—
from the natural faculties, which are not related to the soul and pertain to plants
as well. Besides genesis, nutrition, and growth, Galen discussed the attractive,
repulsive, retentive, and transformative faculties, all relating to the previous ones.
A faculty of the soul would be located in the animal; by contrast, it seems plau-
sible to consider the natural faculties as dependent on the properties of matter of
living organisms in general, thus located in nature more broadly. Galen seems
to be developing Stoic themes here, adopting a tripartite approach whereby some
processes are common to all bodies, whether living or not; some low-level activ-
ities are characteristic of living bodies but depend only on general properties of
living matter; and, finally, some activities, such as sensation and motion, depend
on the soul attached to individual animals. In the late work On My Own Opin-
ions (De propriis placitis), however, Galen underplays the significance of the shift
from faculties of the soul to faculties of nature and suggests instead that in On
the Natural Faculties he had referred to nature rather than the soul only because
the tract was addressed to ordinary doctors (medicis popularibus).32
These issues are tied to broader interpretative problems to do with the nature
of the soul and its faculties. Although Galen patiently explored different alter-
natives and seemingly shifted his allegiances over time, he often left his views
on these matters undetermined. Overall, he saw an unbridgeable difference be-
tween human artifacts and nature’s productions; however, while he repeatedly
stated his confidence in the existence of the soul, he was unsure whether the soul
was material or immaterial, mortal or immortal. While from a strictly medi-
cal standpoint such views may not be of central importance, they certainly are
from a philosophical perspective focusing on life and its properties. Despite the
abstract nature of these issues, Galen sought to answer at least some of them
through empirical means. For example, in his major treatise On the Opinions
of Hippocrates and Plato (De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis), he debates whether
pneuma (a mixture of air and fire) is the soul or its instrument. From a gruesome
vivisection experiment, cutting and damaging an animal’s brain, Galen observes
that the loss of pneuma leads to the loss of sensation and motion, though not of
life, since the animal can recover. Hence, he could conclude that pneuma is not
the substance of the soul, because its loss would lead to death, but only the soul’s
first instrument—whatever the soul may be.33
Similar interpretative problems involve not only the nature of the soul but
also its faculties. The mixture, or krasis, of the humors and their qualities could be
responsible for processes that cannot be produced by us; in this sense the faculties,
whether of nature or the soul, could be due to such mixtures. Mixtures play a key
role in a range of physiological processes; they could be made only by nature or
the demiurge, not by us. Thus, the issue is whether the faculty is the actual krasis
or whether the krasis is its instrument, much like pneuma and the soul. At times,
as in On Mixtures (De temperamentis), Galen suggests that there is something
more to the construction of our body than the humoral qualities, however com-
bined; those qualities would be the instruments of a higher, more divine, cause:
A second mistake is the failure to regard the natural cause of our construction as a
craftsmanlike faculty [dunameos], whereby the parts are formed in a way suited to
the characters of our souls. This was a point on which even Aristotle was in some
doubt: should this faculty not be attributed to some more divine cause, rather than
just to hot, cold, dry, and wet? Those who rush to make simplistic statements of this
greatest of issues, and explain construction purely in terms of the humoral qualities,
seem to me to be in error. The latter are surely only the instruments, whereas the
cause responsible for construction is something different from them.34
However, in one of his last works, The Capacities [or Faculties] of the Soul
Depend on the Mixtures of the Body (Quod animi mores corporis temperamenta se-
quantur), Galen returns to the topic; following Plato, he accepts a tripartite soul
located in the liver, heart, and brain, and claims that the first two are mortal. He
leaves undecided whether the third is mortal—though in fact he strongly sug-
gests that it is; he also strongly suggests—without, however, formally commit-
ting himself to this opinion—that the tripartite soul and its faculties are precisely
the krasis of the four qualities, hot, cold, dry, and humid. As Galen puts it:
Now, if the reasoning form of the soul is mortal, it too will be a particular mixture,
[namely] of the brain; and thus all the forms and parts of the soul will have their
capacities dependent on the mixture—that is, on the substance of the soul; but if
it is immortal, as is Plato’s view, he would have done well, himself, to write an expla-
nation as to why it is separated when the brain is very cooled, or excessively heated,
dried or moistened—in the same way that he wrote the other matters relevant to it.
For death takes place, according to Plato, when the soul is separated from the body.
But why great voiding of blood, the drinking of hemlock, or a raging fever, causes
this separation, I would have certainly have wanted to learn from him, if he were
himself alive.35
Thus, the rational soul too joins a list of problematic and ambiguous notions that
could be used and interpreted in radically different ways, especially whether it is a
mortal mixture of qualities, hot, cold, dry, wet, or of bodies with those qualities,
or how it could be immortal and yet crucially dependent on bodily processes.
The Galenic corpus is among the largest extant in ancient Greek; my account
does not even begin to do justice to its richness and complexity. Nevertheless,
even from our limited perspective, we have seen examples of his reliance on lim-
ited physical/mechanical explanations within an emphatically nonmechanistic
framework, conceptual and terminological problems and ambiguities, and his
extensive reliance on suspension of judgment on major philosophical issues.
Interpretative Tensions
Returning to the early modern period after this brief Galenic excursus, we identi-
fy a number of tensions affecting the mechanistic program not entirely unrelated
to some of the problems we have just encountered. Both early modern authors
and their recent interpreters have struggled with definitions, projects, and prac-
tices; as we are going to see, these issues are profoundly interrelated. While in
some cases mechanistic accounts were discussed in the abstract, here I focus on
more concrete and specific practices.
In some instances, the problem was to make sense of the same devices that
could be seen in a different light by different people and over time, as living or
mechanical, for example, as Vera Keller has reminded us in the case of Dutch
inventor Cornelis Drebbel. At times just naming such devices—a perpetual
motion machine, a cosmoscope, or a thermoscope, for example—would frame
them within a different interpretative system. Magnetic devices had an especially
ambiguous status since Galen, but even watches could be seen as alive by some-
one unfamiliar with their construction, as Boyle had argued polemically against
Henry More: “If I had / been with those Jesuites, that are said to have presented
the first watch to the King of China, who took it to be a living Creature, I should
have thought I had fairly accounted for it, if, by the shape, size, motion, &c. of
the Spring-wheels, balance and other parts of the watch I had shewn, that an
Engine of such a structure would necessarily mark the hours, though I could not
have brought an argument to convince the Chinese-Monarch, that it was not
endowed with Life.”36
A major topic in contemporary debates involves the level of mechanical ex-
planation, an issue with problematic implications also in the early modern peri-
od. Some very strict interpretations of the mechanical philosophy would involve
only the size, shape, and motion of particles. This would be a rather narrow set
of tools on the basis of which it would be exceedingly difficult to explain even
some basic properties of matter, such as its solidity, let alone more special ones,
such as those associated with chymical properties, for example, or elasticity, one
stemming from antiquity and which Leonardo also explored but which rose to
prominence in the second half of the seventeenth century. We are so used to it
that we take it for granted; yet elasticity is a strange and complex property affect-
ing solid bodies, such as a piece of coiled metal, rebounding billiard balls, and
gases bound in a container; in either case, matter seems to have a memory of its
previous state and a tendency to return to it. Despite its ubiquity, even today few
people would be able to provide a vague account of why a bent metal bar seeks
to return to its original position, let alone explain it. Elasticity relates to anatomy
too, since the arteries and other body parts are elastic, as Jean Pecquet pointed
out in 1651.37
How would seventeenth-century natural philosophers try to explain it in
terms of size, shape, and motion of particles? Descartes boldly attempted to ex-
plain elasticity through the motion of particles—but Descartes boldly tried to
explain most things that way. However, as Barnaby Hutchins has recently ar-
gued, even Descartes was far from adopting this approach consistently.38 Finding
a way to account for elasticity was a challenge: was it mechanical, if no em-
pirically based explanation in terms of the size, shape, and motion of particles
and components was forthcoming? In De potentia restitutiva (1678), for example,
Hooke puts forward a hypothesis to account for elasticity in terms of the “con-
gruity and incongruity” among bodies, by which he understands “an agreement
or disagreement of Bodys as to their Magnitudes and motions.”39
We may approach the matter from a different perspective, not in terms of the
component parts and internal organization of an elastic body but rather in terms
of plausibility and analogy with mechanical devices. In the 1670s both Hooke
and Christiaan Huygens designed spring-regulated watches, relying on the no-
tion that the oscillations of a spring are isochronous—that they occur in equal
times regardless of their amplitude. In Horologium oscillatorium (1673) Huygens
had shown that the oscillations of a pendulum clock constrained by cycloidal
cheeks were also isochronous: in both cases at each point the force was propor-
tional to the displacement. Thus, a spring-regulated watch behaved like, or was
Fig. 1.1. Spring-regulated watch. Huygens, “Extrait d’une letter” (1675). Courtesy of
the Lilly Library.
equivalent to, a pendulum clock, an updated version of an archetypal mechanical

device that was explicitly described in the review of Horologium oscillatorium in
the Philosophical Transactions as a “Mechanism” (fig. 1.1). Arguably, once springs
entered the design of the archetypal mechanical device, the question of whether
elasticity was mechanical appeared in a different light. Similarly, in referring to
water fountains operating by the spring or elasticity of the air, Hooke mentions
the “great number of uses that are and may be made of Springs in Mechanic
Contrivances.”40
Thus, the situation in those decades was evolving in such a way that prac-
tices, analogies, and inferences, in addition to attempts at detailed explanations
of microcomponents, affected the plausibility of mechanistic accounts and the
very domain of mechanics. The Jesuit Claude François Milliet Dechales (1621–
1678), for example, devoted the eighth book of Cursus seu mundus mathematicus
(1690) to elaterium, or elasticity: after seven preliminary propositions debating
its physical nature, he produced thirty mathematical theorems on the collision of
bodies. The entire book, however, is part of a section on mechanics, sandwiched
between one on the force of percussion and one on statics: whatever account one
could give of the internal organization of bodies, elasticity had become part of
mechanics.41
Elasticity plays an important role in Boyle’s work as an example among others
of a mechanical affection of matter. Boyle put matters this way in the 1666 On
the Origine of Forms and Qualities According to the Corpuscular Philosophy, a text
Henry Oldenburg presented as an “Introduction to the Principles of the Mechan-
ical Philosophy”:
That then, which I chiefly aime at, is to make it Probable to you by / Experiments,
(which I Think hath not yet beene done:) That allmost all sorts of Qualities, most
of which have been by the Schooles either left Unexplicated, or Generally referr’d,
to I know not what Incomprehensible Substantiall Formes; may be produced
Mechanically, I mean by such Corporeall Agents, as do not appear, either to Work
otherwise, then by vertue of the Motion, Size, Figure, and Contrivance of their
own Parts, (which Attributes I call the Mechanicall Affections of Matter, because
to Them men willingly Referre the various Operations of Mechanical Engines:) or
to Produce the new Qualities exhibited by those Bodies their Action changes, by
any other way, then by changing the Texture, or Motion, or some other Mechanical
Affection of the Body wrought upon.42
In a recent essay Garber cites the same passage but then curiously he focuses only
on motion, size, and figure, omitting to discuss explicitly the notion of contriv-
ance. Arguably contrivance could be accounted for in terms of motion, size, and
figure, yet it is intriguing that Boyle lists it together with the other three, as if
the relation between contrivance and the other notions was problematic. Later
in the same text Boyle argues that engines perform their operations by virtue
of the material properties of their parts, emphasizing once again his dislike of
substantial forms and preference for a body’s four mechanical affections: “And if
several Active Qualities convene in one Body, (as that which in our Hypothesis
is meant by Forme, usually comprises several of them,) what great things may
be thereby perform’d, may be somewhat guess’d at by the strange things we see
done by some Engines which, being, as Engins, undoubtedly devoid of Substan-
tial Forms, must do those strange things they are admir’d for, by virtue of those
Accidents, the / Shape, Size, Motion, and Contrivance, of their parts.”43
Boyle is traditionally very guarded: he states that he makes it “probable” that
“almost all” qualities “may” be produced mechanically. Here, as in the previ-
ous passage, he includes “contrivance” together with shape, size, and motion
among the “Mechanicall Affections of Matter.” At the time this notion was close-
ly tied to that of mechanism, especially in Hooke’s Micrographia (1665), which
appeared the year before Boyle’s Origine. This notion plays an important part in
Boyle’s account: at times he seems to imply the macroscopic arrangement of the
parts of an object, as in a clock; other times he has in mind their internal micro-
scopic arrangement, determining their texture. In the latter case, however, how
one could explain the cohesion, elasticity, and similar properties of bodies was a
problematic matter.44 Arguing against Henry More’s hylarchic principle, which
was an incorporeal agent allegedly explaining Boyle’s hydrostatic experiments,

Boyle explicitly counted “spring” and “weight” among the mechanical affections
of matter: “Such Mechanical Affections of matter, as the Spring and Weight of
the Air, the Gravity and Fluidity of the water and other Liquors, may suffice to
produce and account for the Phaenomena without recourse to an Incorporeal
Creature.”45
We face here the first tension concerning what we could call the transition
across different levels of mechanistic explanation: seventeenth-century discus-
sions differ from more recent ones because at the time it was unclear and also
contentious whether the different levels would be amenable to mechanistic expla-
nations at all. In a remarkable passage from The Excellency of Theology Compar’ d
with Natural Philosophy (1674), Boyle states:
And though Nature (or rather its Divine Author) be wont to work with much finer
materials, and employ more curious contrivances than Art, (whence the Structure
even of the rarest Watch is incomparably inferiour to that of a Humane Body;) yet
an Artist himself, according to the quantity of the matter he imploys, the exigency
of the design he undertakes, and the bigness and shape of the Instruments he makes
use of, is able to make pieces of work of the same nature or kind of extremely differ-
ing bulk, where yet the like, though not equal, Art and Contrivance, and oftentimes
Motion too, may be observ’d.46
After providing some specific examples, Boyle continues with a passage echoing
one from Hooke’s Micrographia: “And therefore to say, that, though in Natural
Bodies, whose bulk is manifest and their structure visible, the Mechanical Prin-
ciples may be usefully admitted, that are not to be extended to such portions
of Matter, whose parts and Texture are invisible; may perhaps look to some, as
if a man should allow, that the Laws of Mechanism may take place in a Town-
Clock; but cannot in a Pocket-Watch.”47 As Hooke had put it in Micrographia:
“We know there may be as much curiosity of contrivance, and excellency of form
in a very small Pocket-clock, that takes not up an Inch square of room, as there
may be in a Church-clock that fills a whole room.”48 Boyle is very forthcoming
here in arguing that “Mechanical Principles” or the “Laws of Mechanism” can
be extended from known visible structures to unknown invisible ones. Overall,
however, such a move was seen as problematic at the time and more recently has
been hotly debated by historians.49
In some cases, the issue was not even one of moving across levels of mech-
anistic explanations but to provide some form of a mechanistic account in the
first place. Despite the huge increase in the mechanical devices available in the
seventeenth century, the range of conceptual and material tools available was
comparatively limited, as Malpighi lamented. How could investigators hope to
account for complex processes formerly seen as related to the natural faculties of
nutrition, growth, and generation, or processes of secretion, muscle contraction,
and sensory perception? At times anatomists could provide only partial and lim-
ited explanations. In the case of secretion, for example, the precise mechanism in-
volved eluded Malpighi; however, in some cases he provided some partial expla-
nations by identifying what he called “glands,” or structures within a number of
organs where the process would occur. Some, as in the cerebral cortex, proved to
be artifacts of his preparation techniques; others, as in the kidneys, proved fertile
for further studies. In the case of growth, Malpighi envisaged a process analogous
to weaving, and identified structures resembling textiles in bone and plants.50
An aspect related to the level of explanation concerns the role of macroscopic
versus microscopic components. In the preface to Micrographia Hooke outlines
the mechanistic program he associated with instruments enhancing the senses,
and especially the microscope. Referring to members of the Royal Society, he
states:
By this means they find some reason to suspect, that those effects of Bodies, which
have been commonly attributed to Qualities, and those confess’d to be occult, are
perform’d by the small Machines of Nature, which are not to be discern’d without
these helps, seeming the meer products of Motion, Figure, and Magnitude; and that
the Natural Textures, which some call the Plastick faculty, may be made in Looms,
which a greater perfection of Opticks may make discernable by these Glasses; so
as now they are no more puzzled about them, then the vulgar are to conceive, how
Tapestry or flowred Stuffs [textile fabrics] are woven.51
Here Hooke ties the ability of instruments to enhance vision to an explicit anti-
Aristotelian agenda, uncovering behind occult inexplicable qualities and plastic
faculties nothing but motion, figure, size, and textures or the material confor-
mation and arrangement of the constituent parts; he argues that the learned
would be no more puzzled by those natural textures than common people are by
the woven structure of fabrics. Although his simile in this passage seems purely
rhetorical, in fact it was quite adroit because weaving was a common mechanical
analogy in the study of plants and animals stemming from antiquity, at least
from Erasistratus. Hooke himself identified the structure of some leaves as re-
sembling a textile: “the smooth surfaces of other Plants are otherwise quilted,
Nature in this, as it were, expressing her Needle-work or imbroidery.” Malpighi
too repeatedly adopted similar views relying on textile analogies in trying to
grasp nature’s operations, such as growth, for example.52
In a recent essay dealing specifically with generation, Karen Detlefsen has
put the matter thus: “For my purposes, I define mechanism as the belief that all
changes at the phenomenal level—that is, all changes we experience—are due to
the lawful motion and contact of sub-visible matter that is inherently inert and
quantitatively, not qualitatively, defined.”53 Detlefsen’s definition fits well with
Hooke’s claim. However, her requirement is very strict: in the seventeenth cen-
tury many mechanisms (such as the valves in the veins and milky veins, and the
components of a clock or a mill) involved macroscopic components and did not
require descending to a subvisible level. In Origine of Formes and Qualities Boyle
put the matter thus with regard to a lock:
That was onely a Piece of Iron, contriv’d into such a Shape; and when afterwards
he made a Key to that Lock, That also in it self Consider’d, was nothing but a Piece
of Iron of such a Determinate Figure: but in Regard that these two Pieces of Iron
might now be Applied to one another after a Certain manner, and that there was a
Congruitie betwixt the Wards of the Lock and those of the Key, the Lock and the
Key did each of them now Obtain a new Capacity and it became a Main part of the
Notion and Description of a Lock, that it was capable of being made to Lock or Un-
lock by that other Piece of Iron we call a Key, and it was Lookd upon as a Peculiar
Faculty and Power in the Key, that it was Fitted to Open and Shut the Lock, and
yet by these new Attributes there was not added any Real or Physical Entity, either
to the Lock, or to the / Key, each of them remaining indeed nothing, but the same
Piece of Iron, just so Shap’d as it was before.54
In some respects Boyle’s passage echoes Hooke’s Micrographia, which had been
published the previous year. While Hooke emphasized miniaturization, how-
ever, Boyle emphasized the spatial relations between lock and key, which taken
together could be seen as a contrivance or mechanism. This rather complex
passage has attracted considerable attention to Boyle’s views on relations; my
interests here are centered on Boyle’s reliance on macroscopic objects to account
for qualities. To be sure, Boyle goes on to provide other examples involving mi-
croscopic effects; nevertheless, Detlefsen’s emphasis on the shift from a visible
to a subvisible level, while appropriate to her topic, seems too restrictive for a
wider study.55
Finally, I wish to address the tension between human artifacts and nature’s or
God’s creations. It was a common rhetorical trope to compare the two, as we have
seen in the previous passage by Boyle, except that the latter were deemed superior,
perhaps incomparably so, to the former: even within the limitations of matter,
God worked with a perfection that humans could not imitate for any size, and of
course those levels were severely limited for humans, while God operated freely
with them. In A Discourse of a Method, for example, Descartes argues that many
motions of the human body can occur without the consent of the will, and then
continues: “Which wil seem nothing strange to those, who knowing how many
Automatas or moving Machines the industry of men can make, imploying but
very few pieces, in comparison of the great abundance of bones, muscles, nerves,
arteries, veins, and all the other parts which are in the body of every Animal, will
consider / this body as a fabrick, which having been made by the hands of God,
is incomparably better ordered, and hath more admirable motions in it then any
of those which can be invented by men.”56
Here, as in other passages by Descartes and his contemporaries, God’s cre-
ation is presented as “incomparably better ordered” than not only human actual
creations but also any that “can be invented” by us. Thus, while in some respects
a plant or an animal would resemble a human-made machine, because it would
lack a soul and the faculties, in other respects there would be an unbridgeable
gap of complexity between the two. Presenting matters this way raises the issue of
whether it makes sense to compare human and divine/natural productions; the
point of establishing a parallel between them is to show their similarity. How-
ever, introducing a distinction between such different artisans as humans and
God runs the risk of transforming a quantitative into a qualitative difference,
one potentially reinforced by having recourse to the notion of infinite perfection.
Leibniz argued along these lines, raising the question as to whether an infinitely
complex and perfect God-created machine, one that therefore cannot be imitated
by human hands, would still be a machine in any meaningful way. The language
of infinite complexity and perfection reintroduces troubling differences that the
talk of machines was meant to erase.57
The extensive reflections and investigations on the notion of mechanism in the
early modern period require careful handling. I have argued that it is helpful to
consider the notion of mechanism not only in isolation, or even together with
its shifting contrast class, but also in a not-dichotomous fashion in relation to
the meaning and usage of a cluster of other potentially related key terms. We
have seen that a number of terms and expressions, such as “volatile active parti-
cles,” “fermentation,” “plastic powers,” “seminal principles,” and “soul,” could be
ambiguous and had shifting meaning. Moreover, the intellectual world was not
divided in a Manichean fashion: it is necessary to consider a range of positions
both within the mechanical philosophy and, more broadly, intersecting it.
At times authors, from Galen in antiquity to early modern ones, adopted
suspension of judgment as a cautious strategy when they knew no better, leav-
ing matters undecided; for some, mechanistic accounts offered plausible expla-
nations within a limited domain in a broader nonmechanistic framework; for
others the mechanical philosophy raised legitimate and genuine questions—as
Dennis Des Chene has convincingly argued, it was an investigative project rather
than an ontological dogma.58
I have also identified a cluster of problems associated with a discourse on

mechanism. An account based exclusively on the identification of mechanisms,
ignoring the broader intellectual horizon within which anatomists operated,
would be one-sided and misleading and would present history as a progressive
linear march of successive mechanical interpretations. However, focusing exclu-
sively on that intellectual horizon would also be misleading because it would
ignore the progressive shift toward mechanistic explanations in investigative
practices, in the form of solving specific problems relying on the available tools.
In recent decades we have come to recognize that the mechanical philos-
ophy was not a monolith molded by Descartes in terms of the size and shape
of particles in motion and left unchanged for decades but a set of evolving and
problematic views and projects whose contents and boundaries were puzzling
and contested and which could be adopted piecemeal and shaped by different
authors according to their needs and intellectual inclinations. We can make sense
of the notion of mechanism within this fluid framework rather than by setting
fixed and anachronistic criteria. I hope that these reflections and hermeneutical
strategies may prove useful to historians and philosophers investigating similar
problems in different periods, and to those studying the notion of mechanism in
contemporary scientific practice. The notion of mechanism is deeply embedded
in the intellectual texture and debates of successive periods; the historian wish-
ing to make sense of our notion at a certain time cannot study it in isolation but
needs to reconstruct the intellectual world of that time.
Chapter 2
Mechanism and Visualization
The visual representation of mechanisms is one among many problems at the in-
tersection between graphic conventions and conceptual issues that philosophers
have studied. My main focus in this chapter is on a time when mechanisms were
relying on mechanics and on a spatial understanding of the world, making them
especially suited to visual representation. My concerns echo and develop both
contemporary practices and opinions, from early beautifully illustrated books of
machines to Ephraim Chambers’s Cyclopædia (1728), whose entry on the “Me-
chanical Philosophy” states: “It is frequently found helpful to decypher, or picture
out in Diagrams, whatsoever is under consideration.”1
This chapter focuses on the representation of mechanisms in the anatomical
literature, broadly conceived. This large area spans from classic mechanical de-
vices, like levers accounting for muscular motion, to floating bodies, explaining
the role of air bladders in the floating of fish, for example. I shall focus on select
cases that I find especially intriguing and thought-provoking. The extensive con-
nections between anatomical mechanisms and human artifacts, old and new,
however, make a narrow disciplinary approach problematic; therefore, I shall not
refrain from discussing images outside anatomy.2
While discussing several images and identifying some general areas for reflec-
tion, I am not seeking to provide a comprehensive analysis. I hope that prospec-
tively my work could be developed both chronologically and conceptually. Here
I wish to investigate a few episodes and questions in the long century between
Andreas Vesalius and Robert Hooke. In his monumental De humani corporis fab-
rica (1543), Vesalius established a new visual language, perhaps even a range of
languages, for representing the human body. At the other endpoint of my narra-
tive, Hooke was a master of mechanical thinking whose Micrographia (1665) was
one of the most visually striking books ever produced: many of its images show
structures of insects and plants based on microscopic observations detailing a
wealth of mechanisms. A brief coda discusses a few images from Anatomia huma-
25
26 Mechanism and Visualization
ni corporis (1685) by the Dutch anatomist Govert Bidloo, whose work enriched
and problematized previous visual traditions but also highlighted the difficulties
in representing microscopic structures requiring elaborate and problematic tech-
niques to be made visible.
I examine individual images and their specific implications as well as their
authors’ philosophical views: it will not surprise readers at this stage that even
anatomists who were opposed to an overall mechanistic understanding of the
body, from Vesalius to William Harvey, could accept mechanistic interpretations
in limited domains and represent them visually. Conversely, some anatomists
firmly in the mechanist camp, such as Marcello Malpighi, for example, produced
images challenging specific mechanistic accounts in contrast with the anatomi-
cal evidence—although Malpighi would have welcomed alternative mechanistic
explanations.
Let me start by briefly considering the problem of visual representation of
mechanisms from a contemporary perspective. Today we are used to visual rep-
resentations of mechanisms in many forms, though perhaps the most common
ones involve a combination of different levels and temporal stages, traditionally
indicated by blow-up diagrams, arrows, boxes, plus and minus signs for elec-
tric charge, color coding, abstract symbols for different components, and other
graphic conventions. We have tacitly learned to identify in visual representations
of mechanisms a combination of conceptual tools and conventions capturing
key elements of the process, involving the spatial and temporal evolution of both
structures and their related activities.3
In the simplified representation of the mechanism of taste shown in fig. 2.1,
for example, a gustatory cell or bud is shown in the center; on the left, a blow-
up diagram shows in greater detail a lipid bilayer with different types of taste-
inducing particles. Taste is determined by electric potential signals, which are
represented by a curve at bottom left with a double arrow to indicate the chang-
ing voltage difference and the degree to which differently shaped particles pene-
trate the lipid bilayer. On the right, a network of neural transmitters carries the
signal to the brain, a process indicated by a series of arrows both from the taste
cell to the neural transmitters and from one neural transmitter to its contiguous
ones.
My description may sound pedantic, such is the level of familiarity we have
with this type of schematic representations; they have become so much part
of our visual experience that we tend to take them for granted. This, howev-
er, would be unjustified historically. Visual representations of mechanisms were
not always the same: they have a history that we need to uncover if we want to
understand their role. My aim is to explore some early examples of those visual
representations.
Mechanism and Visualization 27
Fig. 2.1. Mechanism of taste. Courtesy of Taste and Aroma Institute, Japan.
Preamble: New Forms of Visual Representation

Several historians of art and science have emphasized the key role of images in
the Renaissance world of learning, especially in the aftermath of the emergence
of the printing press from the second half of the fifteenth century. Recently Su-
san Dackerman’s rich exhibition Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early
Modern Europe and its sumptuous catalog of the same title have provided one
of the most extensive and detailed formulations of this thesis, documenting the
usage of prints in areas as diverse as the study of nature and the construction of
mathematical instruments, arguing that prints served not only as records of the
natural world but also as conceptual and material investigative tools.4
Although Dackerman does not dwell specifically on this issue, it is clear that
strategies to render three-dimensionality, from linear perspective to chiaroscuro,
emerged as key components of the visual language of Renaissance prints. This
is a dimension worth exploring for its connections with the study and represen-
tations of machines and mechanisms. Over the last few decades historians of
art and of science have debated the role of new forms of visual representation in
engineering, the mathematical, and natural sciences, notably the development
of geometrical and representational techniques known as linear perspective by
Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446), Leon Battista Alberti (1404–72), and their
contemporaries. Art historian James Elkins has argued that perspective is best
seen not as a single “invention” based on a unified visual space that occurred
in the Renaissance attributable to Brunelleschi or Alberti but rather as a cluster
of representational and mathematical techniques for depicting objects that took
shape and were applied over a long period, culminating in the Enlightenment.
Besides novel forms of visual representation, linear perspective also led to partic-
ular attention being paid to subjects especially suited to being represented that
way, in architecture and nature alike.5 Such comments enrich and problematize
theses about perspective and engineering drawings put forward long ago by such
notable art historians as Erwin Panofsky, Samuel Edgerton, and Martin Kemp,
among others, though this is a complex matter, as we will see.
Some historians of art and science have argued that the impact of those new
forms of representation from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries played
a major role not only in the visual arts and the related fields of geometry and
optics but also in the transformations of knowledge of the seventeenth centu-
ry commonly referred to as the Scientific Revolution.6 By contrast, others have
questioned one or several aspects of this thesis, such as the claim that the emer-
gence of linear perspective was a single or unified development, or that it played
a significant role in the seminal works in rational mechanics and the science of
motion. In recent years our understanding of the transformations in the inves-
tigations of nature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries has broadened to
include not only the classic fields of theoretical mechanics and astronomy but
also other areas, such as practical mechanics and the science of machines, natural
history, chymistry, and anatomy, for example. My aim here is briefly to review
this debate by looking at different areas and their specific features.7
Edgerton has been a vocal advocate of the crucial role of perspective and
images more broadly in different contexts. One, very localized, area concerns
Galileo’s ability to detect features on the moon’s surface based on his firsthand
experience with chiaroscuro painting techniques: his trained eye recognized the
motion of dark and bright spots as the result of sunlight moving across moun-
tains and valleys, something his English contemporary Thomas Harriot (1560–
1621)—admittedly working with a somewhat lesser telescope—failed to do.
Here the issue was not primarily with the mathematical theory of perspective
but rather with chiaroscuro painting techniques enhancing three-dimensional
spatial perception though the observation of moving light and shade.8
Edgerton’s broader claim is bolder, less precise, and more problematic. By
looking at the manuscript works of Sienese engineers such as Mariano di Jacopo,
called Taccola (1382–1453), who was personally acquainted with his Florentine
contemporary Brunelleschi, and Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1439–1501),
Edgerton identified new forms of representation in engineering and technical
Fig. 2.2. Water-raising machine. Agricola, De re metallica (1556), 155. Courtesy of the
Lilly Library.
Fig. 2.3. Weapons sharpener and legumes grinder. Zonca, Novo teatro (1607).
drawings largely, though by no means exclusively, inspired by perspective. In

addition, those drawings display a remarkably wide range of representation tech-
niques, such as “exploded,” “transparent,” and also “cutaway” views, showing
the spatial relationships and order of assembly of the component parts, as well
as components or features in outline, light shading, or even removed altogether,
allowing the viewer to see behind them. A number of broadly contemporary
German texts show that these developments were not limited to Italy. Many of
them remained in manuscript form, but in the sixteenth century several treatises
lavishly illustrated with woodcuts and then engravings appeared in print, such
as De la pirotechnia (1540), by the Sienese metallurgist Vannoccio Biringuccio
(1480–1539); De re metallica (1556), by the German physician and metallurgist
Georgius Agricola (1494–1555); and Le diverse et artificiose machine (1588), by
the military engineer Agostino Ramelli (1531–ca. 1600), among others. To these
one could add Spiritalium liber (Book on pneumatics, or pneumatic devices;
1575) by the engineer Heron of Alexandria (1st century CE), with many later
editions and translations. Early in the seventeenth century the Padua architect
and Galileo contemporary Vittorio Zonca (1568–1602) published Novo teatro
di machine et edificii (1607), partly relying on works by Agricola and Francesco
di Giorgio documenting a wealth of contemporary machines with remarkable
engravings.9
A typical woodcut from Agricola’s treatise, for example, offers a perspectival
view of an elaborate water-raising machine operated by two men walking inside
a wheel (fig. 2.2). The next engraving, from Zonca’s work, shows a device serving
two purposes: the nearly horizontal man at bottom right is sharpening weap-
ons, whereas the round device above him at the top of the stairs is for grinding
legumes (fig. 2.3). Notice that the wheel to which the horse is attached is below
ground. In a rectangular insert at the top of the plate Zonca shows the crucial
pieces of machinery or mechanisms of his device; this technique for highlighting
the key parts was not uncommon at the time. In the text he also provides the
dimensions and key features of those crucial parts.10
At times Edgerton seems to assume that such works and images were used
in practice by technicians and engineers. A study of their intended audience and
usage, however, is a complex matter. While some drawings were used as a form of
communication between engineers designing machines and technicians building
them, or as tool for investigation and research to be kept in private archives, others
are best seen in terms of patronage moves or as elucidating the theoretical basis on
which machines operated. In this light it seems reductive and potentially mislead-
ing to look at images of machines as if they could be placed in a linear progressive
trajectory from “primitive, erroneous, and ineffectual” medieval representations
to increasingly accurate ones based on perspective and related conventions. David
McGee has identified Edgerton as “perhaps the worst example” in this regard
and has convincingly argued that technicians and engineers familiar with the
construction of machines would have made sense of medieval drawings, while the
introduction of perspectival techniques may have had more to do with patronage
motivations than an increase in accuracy, however defined, for its own sake.11
Edgerton has adopted a comparative approach, arguing that the “objective
power” of the techniques of representation adopted was peculiar to the West and
that a Chinese translation of Ramelli’s work, for example, failed to understand
the graphic conventions adopted and therefore produced an image that bore no
relation to the actual operation of the machine. It is worth adding, however, that
the difficulties in making sense of Ramelli’s diagram do not imply that the Chi-
nese or other Asian cultures were unfamiliar with automata or unable to build
them. On the contrary, automata and other elaborate machines from a range of
Asian sources reached Europe, where they were largely unknown, in medieval
times. Edgerton has also argued that these new forms of visual representation
were instrumental to developments in the first half of the seventeenth century:
“It may have been of no small significance to their later contributions that the
first generation of ‘modern’ scientists like Francis Bacon, Galileo, William Har-
vey, and Descartes were also the first to have before them as schoolboys scientific
textbooks illustrated in the new Renaissance chiaroscuro and linear perspective
style.”12
While one may wish to know which “scientific textbooks” Edgerton has in
mind here, his comments raise the question of the genre of the publications in
which images appeared and of their intended audience. But even if one considers
that relevant images would have become widely available, whether they appeared
in textbooks or other publications, questions remain. In a pointed rejoinder, for
example, the historian of mathematics Michael Mahoney has questioned Edger-
ton’s assumptions and conclusions. While Edgerton believes that images of ma-
chines and mechanical devices, not only drawn but possibly also conceived and
designed through perspectival techniques, played a central role in the Scientific
Revolution, Mahoney privileges diagrams and graphs helping to visualize ab-
stract parameters that previously could be seen only with the mind, such as those
involving time and velocity, for instance. One may add here that some forms
of graphs representing abstract variables date from medieval times, as with the
doctrine of the intension and remission of forms in which several variables, such
as speed, time, heat, or even “whiteness” are tabulated on the horizontal and ver-
tical axes. In addition, according to Mahoney, the seventeenth century witnessed
the rise of powerful and abstract algebraic techniques involving parameters and
equations: those techniques, not perspectival drawings of machines, truly would
have played the key role.13
The disagreement between Edgerton and Mahoney concerns not only the
role of perspective in seventeenth-century investigations of nature but also to
some extent the nature of those investigations and the identity of their protago-
nists. Edgerton mentions Bacon, Galileo, Harvey, and Descartes, whereas Ma-
honey focuses on the protagonists of the mathematical study of nature: Galileo,
Huygens, and Isaac Newton. Some of Edgerton’s choices appear questionable—
Bacon, for example, is not noted for his reliance on visual material, apart from
allegorical title pages; in fact, he privileged experiments investigating natural
processes over visual representations. Harvey explicitly questioned the usefulness
and reliability of images and refrained from using them; in his opinion each visu-
al representation of the same object is slightly different from the other, thus they
all introduce subtle errors. Apart from a title page featuring Jupiter enthroned
opening an egg, his published works include one image only, in four parts, ad-
mittedly an important one that we will discuss below, though hardly a match to
major classics in the anatomical tradition.14
While Mahoney is right in pointing to vagueness in Edgerton’s thesis and to
shortcomings in its formulation, I suspect that there may be more to the claim
that visual and specifically perspectival renderings played a significant role in early
modern investigations of nature than is claimed by Edgerton. Mahoney provided
a serious challenge, though one wonders whether at times he may have overstated
and overextended his case. The profound transformations of knowledge in the
early modern period touched on different areas, the growth of abstract think-
ing, algebra, and equations being only some of them that, moreover, developed
rather late. If one were to follow Mahoney’s thesis, one would have to question
the role of images in general, not only of linear perspective, in the transforma-
tions of knowledge of the early modern period. Edgerton and Mahoney, how-
ever, share at least one feature: the largely overlapping emphasis on seventeenth-
century developments. Throughout the long sixteenth century, however, visual
representations, specifically relying on a range of perspectival techniques, played
a major role in many areas. As Pamela Long has recently argued regarding Fran-
cesco di Giorgio and Leonardo, “their writings contributed to a culture of knowl-
edge in which instrumentation, tools, machines, and indeed, drawings, came to
play a crucial role in legitimating knowledge claims about the world, including
its natural and mechanical components.”15
Whether drawings were intended as private studies or as elaborate gifts to
powerful patrons, as largely decorative elements or as cognitive tools for design-
ing machines or representing nature, they characterized large portions of the
world of learning in the Renaissance and beyond. In fact, one may question
whether in many cases it is helpful or even possible to draw a sharp line between
patronage, social, and cognitive motivations. Wolfgang Lefèvre listed approxi-
Fig. 2.4. Great equatorial armillary sphere. Brahe, Astronomiae instauratae mechanica
(1602). Courtesy of the Lilly Library.
mately two dozen presentational manuscript and printed treatises of machines

for the two long centuries from physician Guido da Vigevano († ca. 1349) and
military engineer Konrad Keyser († ca. 1405), through Agricola and Ramelli
in the sixteenth century, to Zonca and Huguenot hydraulic engineer Salomon
de Caus (1576–1626) early in the seventeenth; in these works, patronage and
cognitive motivations were closely intermingled, perhaps deliberately so. As
we are going to see, the same applies to De humani corporis fabrica, the epoch-
making anatomy treatise that Andreas Vesalius dedicated to Emperor Charles V
in 1543.16
In the art and science of war, for example, mathematical drawings—whether
in perspectival form or “decomposed” in ground plan and elevation—played
a key role in triangulating a terrain, designing fortifications and bastions, or
investigating the trajectory of cannon balls. Many published on these matters,
from the Italian mathematician Niccolò Tartaglia (1499–1557) and Spanish mil-
itary engineer Diego Ufano (†1613) to Galileo, who investigated and lectured
on such topics as professor of mathematics at Padua. Instruments and devices
of various sorts, too, for both measuring and representing nature, played a key
role throughout the early modern period and in many domains, from astronomy
and the science of motion to hydraulics and pneumatics. Perhaps no set of in-
struments was more wondrous than the one Tycho Brahe (1546–1601) built and
described in Astronomiae instauratae mechanica (1598; 1602). The woodcut of the
great equatorial armillary instrument gives an effective perspectival view of the
extraordinary device, with a small human figure at bottom left providing an idea
of its scale (fig. 2.4).17
Renaissance astronomical instruments, whether actually built or merely de-
signed, were not used exclusively as measuring devices but also for representing
the cosmos or some of its features. Johannes Kepler’s model of the Coperni-
can universe in his Mysterium cosmographicum (1596) was not widely accepted;
nevertheless it has attained iconic status with its three-dimensional representa-
tion drawing the viewer’s eye deeper into the nested Platonic solids separated by
spheres, proving in Kepler’s opinion the mathematical necessity of the Coperni-
can system (fig. 2.5). A careful rendering of perspective and shading is central to
this striking image, whose role was significant precisely because a physical model
was not built.18
Later in the century the air pumps designed by Otto von Guericke and Robert
Boyle were depicted in elaborate three-dimensional format. But images—besides
Galileo’s moon drawings—played a significant role even for the authors consid-
ered and indeed singled out by Mahoney, such as Huygens. Huygens’s magnum
opus, Horologium oscillatorium, relies on geometric diagrams, graphs, propor-
tions, and algebraic techniques, as Mahoney has shown. However, the issue for
Fig. 2.5. Planets and Platonic solids. Kepler, Mysterium cosmographicum (1596). Courte-
sy of the Lilly Library.
Huygens was not only to determine the exact shape of the cheeks constraining
the pendulum so its oscillations would be isochronous, the center of oscillation
of a compound or physical pendulum, or other mathematical properties but also
to construct a viable clock sufficiently accurate to determine longitude at sea.
The book was written in Latin, was addressed to a learned audience proficient in
higher mathematics, and was dedicated to Louis XIV. However, Huygens also es-
Fig. 2.6. Marine pendulum clock. Huygens, Horologium oscillatorium (1673). Courtesy
of the Lilly Library.
tablished extensive and at times fractious collaborations with several instrument

makers in the attempt to produce reliable timekeepers on land and at sea, a topic
also discussed by Mahoney. Huygens’s work included several images, such as the
one showing the details of a marine pendulum AB that can be kept upright on a
moving ship by rotating around C and FG (fig. 2.6): the perspectival view is re-
quired here to see the double motion. Incidentally, the spring-regulated watch we
have seen in the previous chapter (fig. 1.1) is also shown in perspective in order to
display the coiled spring in relation to the other moving parts. Thus, here we see
a meaningful link between higher mathematics and the spatial representation of
the components of the pendulum clock and spring-regulated watch in the visual
engineering tradition studied by Edgerton and other historians. As we have seen
in the previous chapter, the anonymous reviewer in the Philosophical Transactions
called Huygens’s clock a “Mechanism,” using a term that was becoming increas-
ingly common at the time.19
Thus, I believe we could and should reconcile Mahoney’s astute analysis with
a new emphasis on the key role of visual representation: in some respects they
can be seen as two sides of the same coin. The transformations of knowledge of
the early modern period cannot be reduced to rational mechanics. In many areas
visual representations, especially spatial perspectival renderings, played an im-

portant, possibly even crucial, role. Those transformations extended also to other
subjects besides instruments and machines, to which they offered cognitively
crucial visual elements. In natural history, representations of the spatial arrange-
ment of plants, animals, and fossils, for example, enabled scholars to identify
specimens and debate their nature, as Sachiko Kusukawa has recently argued.
In mid-sixteenth-century anatomy visual representations of the body and the
disposition of its parts became of central importance, at times together with the
notion of mechanism, as we are about to see. While some representations were
mainly descriptive, others offered an operational understanding too, with wider
implications for the movement known as the mechanical philosophy. Linear per-
spective provided a visual language for representing the world and also a novel
way of viewing it.20
Revisiting Vesalius’s Fabrica

There is no better place to start this investigation than the epoch-making work of
Andreas Vesalius. The range of techniques and conventions Vesalius and his art-
ists adopted in De humani corporis fabrica was very wide; in no way does my study
do justice to the richness and complexity of his visual language. Yet even Vesalius
had to admit the limitations of visual representations, especially in the medium
of woodcut he was employing. In his attempt to show the differences in the na-
ture and texture of the three tunics of the stomach, for example, he warns about
those limitations when he states: “In so far as we can achieve by an image.”21
But why include anatomical images in the first place? From our perspective,
the question sounds redundant; after all, anatomy for us is a visual science par
excellence. From a Renaissance standpoint, however, matters looked different
and the question was worth asking; although there were early precedents to the
Fabrica, such as treatises by Johannes de Ketham and Hans von Gersdorff, many
anatomical works in the early sixteenth century did not contain illustrations and
focused on recovering and interpreting ancient sources and reconciling apparent
differences and contradictions among them. Vesalius’s Paris teacher Jacobus Syl-
vius, for example, objected to the usage of images, preferring direct visual experi-
ences and the feeling of touch.22 There is no single answer to our question: Vesal-
ius used images for a variety of purposes, some of which may sound paradoxical,
as we shall see, and seemingly relied on different artists, including himself. The
over two hundred images in Vesalius’s work would require a close analysis: they
display a range of graphic conventions and techniques, such as showing surfaces
and cross sections, for example, or, following an ancient tradition without show-
ing the body as it would appear on the dissecting table but reconstructing it by
separating different systems, skeletal, muscular, vascular, etc.
Fig. 2.7. Fictitious structure of the kidneys. Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica (1543).
Courtesy of the Lilly Library.
The first two books are devoted to the bones and muscles; while some wood-
cuts show individual preparations, usually in small size and mainly focusing on
anatomical accuracy, the celebrated skeletons and muscle-men display the entire
body, often in expressive poses showing motions and emotions. The woodcuts
of veins, arteries, and nerves in books III and IV can be divided into portraits
of individual preparations and representations of the entire body. In this case,
however, the vein-, artery-, and nerve-men show no motions or emotions. At a
time when injection techniques were primitive at best, veins and arteries of the
entire body were not visible as was the skeleton; they had to be reconstructed by
the anatomist and the image had to be assembled piecemeal. Paradoxically, one
could argue that those reconstructed images were shown precisely because they
were not immediately accessible to the investigator—they were not portraits of
the visible but elaborate reconstructions of what lay concealed. Many, though
by no means all, of the woodcuts in book V on the viscera, as Glenn Harcourt
has shown in a now classic essay, show the inside of the body encased in classical
statuary, while images of the brain in book VII are indebted to Anatomia capitis
humani (1536), by Johannes Dryander, who studied anatomy in Paris at the same
time as Vesalius. Unlike images of the veins, arteries, and nerves, they show suc-
cessive cross sections of the brain as they would appear on the dissecting table.23
One of the most intriguing woodcuts in the Fabrica raises issues relevant to
mechanism. In book V Vesalius seemingly shows kidneys in cross section, with a
pierced membrane in the middle; the membrane would work mechanically like a
filter, separating blood from urine, which would then fall downward. Suspiciously,
we see two possible alternatives (fig. 2.7). In fact, Vesalius makes it quite clear
Fig. 2.8. Real structure of the kidneys. Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica (1543).
that neither image provides a faithful representation of the kidneys’ interiors but
rather both present fictitious structures. What was he up to? Vesalius was critical
of those who had argued that the kidneys separated urine mechanically rather
than through selective attraction—the Galenic nonmechanical interpretation he
favored. Thus, he tried to refute a mechanistic account by showing an implausible
structure: what we could call a mechanism, a structure in the form of a pierced
membrane allegedly acting mechanically through filtration, looks patently inad-
equate—this is not how real kidneys look to anyone who has inspected them.
An accurate representation of the kidneys’ interior would look rather different,
as Vesalius shows in another woodcut (fig. 2.8). This is not the only image in the
Fabrica in which he presents features based on erroneous opinions only to high-
light their implausibility: he does so for the heart and vena cava too.24
Although Vesalius opposed a mechanistic understanding of the body, he
also displayed extensive mechanical experience and ingenuity, if nothing else,
through dissection. Just examine the well known and often reproduced panoply
Fig. 2.9. Heart ventricles in cross section. Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica (1543),
567. Courtesy of the Lilly Library.
of implements he employed, casually displayed on a table, from sturdy saw, knife,

and mallet to the more delicate straws used for insufflation; or look at the cob-
bler’s awl “for sawing soles on to shoes,” as he put it, that he adapted for boring
holes in hard bones so they could be mounted with copper wire.25
But what about nature? Vesalius studied both surfaces and cross sections. In
book VI, on the heart, for example, he includes a woodcut of its cross section,
shown as if it were hinged in the middle, highlighting the differences between
the ventricles, the right having a thin side, the left a very thick one (fig. 2.9).
Overall, Vesalius’s emphasis was on the fabrica—the edifice, or structure—of
the human body, rather than on the way the body works: this is true for the text
and especially the images. The real image of the kidneys, for example, does not
convey any information on how they work; since Vesalius believed that they
functioned not as filters but by selective attraction operating at a considerable
distance, it would have been almost inconceivable to show their mode of op-
eration, especially with the visual tools and conventions available at the time.
However, Vesalius did not include images showing the mode of operation of
body parts also in cases when this would have been feasible. Take what we call
the valves in the heart, for example. Vesalius counts eleven “membranes” in the
four major vessels connected to the heart and states that they “prevent matter
from flowing back,” though neither the images nor the text offers a sense of how
they operate (fig. 2.10). They are compared to a triangular spike used by the
Turks and, for that with only two membranes, a bishop’s mitre—hence the later
Fig. 2.10. Membranes in the heart. Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica (1543), 565.
name “mitral valve.” Both names could be characterized as structural rather than
functional.26
In a few rare instances, however, Vesalius adopts a different approach and
shows how the mechanical arrangement of human artifacts, such as the serrated
edge of our implements, hinges, and boxes could elucidate anatomical structures:
here a marginal annotation links interlocking seams between wooden planks, at
the bottom, to the bone sutures of the human skull, thus providing a mechan-
ical analogy (fig. 2.11). In the related image the skull is shown from the most
advantageous angle, from the side and slightly above, to highlight the similarity
between the two structures (fig. 2.12). Here the arrangement of joints serves a
mechanical purpose, to keep the two parts locked together without rotating or
sliding, as what could be called a static as opposed to a moving mechanism.
Similarly, Vesalius discusses several types of joints among bones; some he
compared to hinges (fig. 2.13). The plates I have selected illustrate the joint be-
tween hip bone and femur: Vesalius specifically refers to both plates as being
related, with the head of the femur fitting in the acetabulum or socket of the hip
(figs. 2.14–15). The plate showing the pelvis from three different angles is espe-
cially remarkable in its attempt to render a complex three-dimensional shape. In
Tabulae anatomicae sex (1538), Vesalius and his artist, Jan Stephen von Kalkar,
had shown the skeleton from three different angles, front, side, and back, in the
spirit of what Leonardo had done in different instances a few decades earlier,
with two views of the heart, for example. However, here Vesalius’s usage in the
three images of consistent lettering for the same portions of the bone goes be-
yond static representations, inviting and guiding the viewer to visualize a rota-
tion of the bone.27
Fig. 2.11. Serrated edges, joints, and hinges. Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica (1543).
Fig. 2.12. Bone sutures in the human skull. Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica (1543).
Fig. 2.13. Hinge. Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica (1543). Courtesy of the Lilly
Library.
Fig. 2.14. Pelvis from three different angles. Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica (1543).
Fig. 2.15. Side views of femur. Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica (1543). Courtesy of
the Lilly Library.
Although both skull sutures and the pelvis articulation show what one may
call mechanisms, the images highlight a tension between stasis and motion: some
structures show interlocking bones, so as to prevent motion and to offer protec-
tion, as with the skull; others are arranged so as to enable rotation, as in the leg
joints. While static structures can be represented rather straightforwardly, those
implying motion pose greater conceptual and representational problems. Here
the plate privileges the structure of the pelvis seen as in rotation, rather than
attempting to show the actual motions of the bones of the articulation.
Motion and Directionality: Little Doors and Valves

Key early modern structures relating to fluid motion in the body were “little
doors,” or valves, those in the veins and in the newly discovered chyle and lym-
phatic vessels, and in the thoracic duct. These structures resemble the valves in
the heart, though the issue of directionality in the veins was more problematic.
In 1603 the Padua anatomist and surgeon Hieronymus Fabricius published De
venarum ostiolis (On the Little Doors in the Veins). In a revealing passage, Fabri-
cius spells out a parallel with artificial devices: he argues that natura machinata,
or machinelike nature, crafts ostiola, or little doors, much like artifices, or tech-
nicians, craft sluices (septa) and dams (claustra) in order to divert and store water
for the usage of mills. Another anatomist active in the Veneto, Alessandro Ben-
edetti (1450–1512), had used the term claustra for the flaps in the heart’s valves.
By slowing down the motion of blood, the ostiola would regulate blood flow
by performing a dual task, preventing excessive accumulation in the limbs and
depletion in the upper parts. The parallel Fabricius establishes relies on flow reg-
ulation to prevent excess or defect of water or blood, or, in his own words:
[Marginal note:] Similarity between the little doors [ostiola] and the obstructions
that hold back the water in mills. [Main text:] Machinelike nature [natura machi-
nata] operates soundly with a similar purpose here and through artificial means in
mills, in which technicians, in order to hold back a large quantity of water, so that
it is preserved for the use of mills and machines, apply some obstructions called
sluices [septa] and dams [claustra] in Latin, chiuse [clausas] and roste [rostas] in the
vernacular, in which, as in a suitable venter, a large amount of water, and finally that
which is required, is collected. Nature operates in the same manner in the veins,
which are like the canals of the rivers for the little doors [ostiola], whether single or
double.28
A rosta, a term used in the Veneto, would divert and regulate water from a
river or canal to mills or related machines. Although a chiusa would be manually
operated, Fabricius gives no indication that the ostiola in the veins would require
any intervention to function besides that of pressing blood.29 Fabricius had re-
course to innovative forms of representation (fig. 2.16): he shows the valves in
the veins inside out in two branches of veins from the legs (labeled “figura ii”);
in the top one the valves are filled with cotton wool, in the one below they are
not. Further, he compares the valves as they appear in the vein inside out to the
knots of the plant called verbena, which he shows with the side branches cut off
(figura iii) and also whole (figura iiii); Fabricius wanted to highlight that valves,
much like “flowers, leaves, and branches grow successively from opposite sides of
the stem.”30 Thus this arrangement would delay, though not block, the passage of
Fig. 2.16. Little doors in the veins. Fabricius, De venarum ostiolis (1603), plate II.
Fig. 2.17. Little doors in the

veins. Fabricius, De venarum
ostiolis (1603), plate V. Cour-
tesy of the Lilly Library.
Fig. 2.18. Water sluices (detail). Zonca, Novo teatro (1607).
blood downward. A later plate (fig. 2.17) shows the actual structure of the little
doors in situ, with each ostiolum formed by two slightly folded membranes.
It is well known that although Fabricius and his erstwhile student William
Harvey observed the same anatomical structures and established parallels with
artificial machines, they interpreted their operation differently: for Fabricius
their main purpose was to regulate water or blood flow by delay and storage,
though they did not block that flow. Harvey compared the same anatomical
structures to sluices allowing the unidirectional flow of water in rivers, or valves
(“valvularum, quibus cursus fluminum inhibentur, in morem”), thus enabling
blood flow in the opposite direction to the one Fabricius had envisaged. Harvey
confirmed his views by ligature experiments during a vivisection and by inserting
a probe in the veins of a cadaver.31 Both, however, seemingly saw them as self-
operating mechanisms.
Images of earlier sluices built following a design from Leonardo da Vinci’s At-
lantic codex illustrate what Harvey had in mind. Another image, this time from
Novo teatro (1607), by Zonca, provides additional evidence. In Zonca’s image
the sluices are operated manually to allow water to flow from the bottom up (fig.
2.18); by contrast, following Harvey, similarly shaped valves in the veins would
allow blood to flow only in the opposite direction. In the 1628 Latin text Harvey
described their shape as sigmoidal; the 1653 English translation, published when
Harvey was still alive, shows a capital ∑, effectively rendering visually the mech-
anism Harvey wanted to represent.32
Fig. 2.19. Valves in the veins. Harvey, Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis (1628). Cour-
Harvey’s reinterpretation of Fabricius’s views involved different graphic con-

ventions. Harvey relied on an image—the only one he ever published—and ad-
opted a form of representation that is relatively rare in the anatomical literature:
a sequence of snapshots representing a series of operations illustrating a process
(fig. 2.19). Harvey’s plate echoes the one used by Fabricius, also showing a hu-
man arm with a ligature highlighting the ostiola. Both borrow from the surgical
literature because the ligature applied to the arm was standard in bloodletting
and because surgery manuals often depicted procedures. Fabricius’s forms of in-
vestigation and representation highlight the structure he had newly discovered.
By contrast, Harvey’s images are designed to clarify the mode of operation of
valves and the direction of blood flow by showing that venous blood cannot be
pushed away from the heart past a valve. As Jerry Bylebyl has shown, applying a
ligature to a vein could be interpreted in different ways: many anatomists before
Harvey would have seen the ligature as a device that draws blood because it gen-
erates pain, or it produces heat, or it creates a vacuum, or it weakens the distal
portion, thereby causing Nature to direct venous blood to it in a way that is not
necessarily mechanical. By contrast, for Harvey the ligature simply blocked the
backward flow of venous blood toward the heart in a purely mechanical fashion
and therefore the ligature in his plate unambiguously depicts a mechanism: “But
this is the manifest cause of attraction beneath the ligature, and of swelling be-
yond measure in the hand and fingers, to wit, that the blood does enter forcibly
and apace, but cannot get out again.”33
The visual connections between Fabricius’s and Harvey’s plates are well
known. Despite their similarity, however, Fabricius’s and Harvey’s plates differ
conceptually and serve different purposes. Further, there are other links tying
Harvey’s plate to conventions adopted by his teacher. Harvey’s plate raises the
issue of the visual representation of directionality through a process occurring in
time: how does one represent such a process and the direction of flow in the early
modern period?34 It was not uncommon to represent time flow in art through
different conventions. We have learned to identify different temporal stages in
visual representations of earlier times, such as the crucial moments of a saint’s life
in a Renaissance predella, for example. Arguably the most obvious area involving
time in anatomy is the process of generation, which Fabricius investigated in a
range of animals and specifically for the chick in the egg. Harvey would have
found in Fabricius’s plates on generation an additional visual source for his work
on the valves in the veins. Unlike Harvey’s plates, each of Fabricius’s figures on
the formation of the chick is based on the destruction of an incubated egg; there-
fore, the visual representation of a temporal sequence they provide is an illusion,
because all they show is as many eggs at different stages of development as there
are figures.35
Fig. 2.20. Lacteal with ligatures and valves. Walaeus, “Epistolae duae de motu chyli
et sanguinis,” in Institutiones anatomicae (1641). Courtesy of the Lilly Library.
Ducts and Valves: The Body as a Hydraulic System

While valves were compared to sluices and dams, vessels were compared to riv-
ers and canals. These may seem rather simple mechanisms, although in some
cases they required careful handling in several respects. I consider three cases
in particular, with an appendix; they are well known, but in reviewing them I
hope to highlight the significance of the mechanical arrangement of the parts. In
ancient Alexandria the anatomist Erasistratus described unidirectional valves in
terms echoing those used for contemporary technological devices, such as a water
pump invented by the engineer Ctesibius; his account, however, was limited to
the heart.36
In the seventeenth century anatomists expanded similar mechanistic expla-
nations to fluid flow in the chyle and lymph vessels, often without having re-
course to attractive, retentive, and repulsive faculties, which were the staple of
Galenic explanations of bodily processes. Some images transferred visual con-
ventions across fields: in 1641, for example, Dutch anatomist Johannes Walaeus
introduced ligatures, highlighting directionality by the accumulation of chyle
on one side in the milky veins or lacteals recently discovered by Gasparo Aselli,
whose De lactibus sive lacteis venis (On the Lacteals or Milky Veins; 1627) was
reprinted in Leiden in 1640 (fig. 2.20). Walaeus’s visual technique demonstrated
the presence of valves as well, clearly shown in the portion intercepted between
Fig. 2.21. Thoracic duct. Pecquet, Experimenta nova anatomica (1651). Courtesy of the
Lilly Library.
the ligatures, shown as tiny bows, and the intestine; his valves are shown as small
enlargements of the vessels and closely resemble the valves in the veins as depict-
ed by Fabricius and Harvey. Although Harvey had relied extensively on ligatures
of vessels in his vivisection experiments to investigate directionality of blood
flow, it was Walaeus who exploited the technique visually by actually showing a
ligature and its effect on chyle flow.37
The discovery of the thoracic duct by French anatomist Jean Pecquet chal-
lenged the traditional purpose of the liver in making blood from digested food.
Pecquet’s duct simply bypassed the liver, the largest internal organ of the body,
seemingly depriving it of its crucial role. His finding also raised the problem of
how chyle would move within the duct, whether purely mechanically or through
some form of attraction—in his letter to Bartholin, Walaeus had endorsed attrac-
Fig. 2.22. Valves in the lymphatics. Ruysch, Dilucidatio (1665). Courtesy of the Lilly
Library.
tion as causing motion in the milky veins. Pecquet devoted considerable attention
to this matter and added an entire section on physicomechanical experiments to
his anatomical treatise. He argued that elasticity (“elatery”) played a key role, but
he also identified small valves preventing the backflow of chyle; they are visible
in fig. 2.21 under the letters “m” as tiny flaps in the figure on the left, showing
the thoracic duct free from other body parts and slightly enlarged compared to
the figure in situ in the dissected dog on the right.38
In the following decade the Dutch anatomist Frederik Ruysch provided im-
ages of the valves in the tiny lymphatic vessels and milky veins, which he had
been able to inject thanks to a novel sophisticated technique involving special sy-
ringes. The part of the image labeled “C” shows a tiny milky vein with the valves
(fig. 2.22). His images break with tradition by showing in detail the internal
structure of valves with two coalescing flaps. Ruysch’s images explain how valves
work from their configuration, accounting for the direction of flow of lymph
from the smaller to the larger branches.39
Valves were not the only focus of attention in the burst of interest in the body
as a hydraulic system. At times even seemingly simple ducts could reveal surpris-
es. The anastomoses among the arteries at the base of the brain identified by the
Oxford anatomist Thomas Willis (1621–1675) date from 1664, one year before
Ruysch’s work on the valves in the lymphatics; the system of anastomoses—later
known as the circle of Willis—enables the arterial system to properly mix the
blood going to the brain and especially to provide the brain with a constant sup-
ply of blood even if some obstruction were to occur: “But there is another reason
far greater than this of these manifold ingraftings of the Vessels, to wit, that there
may be a manifold way, and that more certain, for the blood about to go into
divers Regions of the Brain, laid open for each; so that if by chance one or two
should be stopt, there might easily be found another passage instead of them.”40
Willis and his collaborator Richard Lower became aware of the significance
of this structure from the pathological case of a man who had died of an un-
related condition, whose right carotid artery was almost obstructed, “bony or
rather stony,” yet his entire brain was perfectly functional until the end of his life.
Subsequently they performed animal experiments on dogs with ink injections,
showing that the entire blood supply system in the brain is a connected network:
“Hence it plainly appears that there is a communication between the Vessels
watering the whole Head; and although every Artery is carried to one only Re-
gion, as its peculiar Province, and provides for it apart, yet, lest any part should
be deprived of the influence of the blood, more ways lye open to every part by
the ingraftings of those vessels; so that if the proper vessels by chance should be
wanting in their office, its defect may presently be compensated by others neigh-
bouring.”41 This mechanism is unusual because it does not involve clearly distinct
component parts: the arterial anastomoses form a loop, if an artery becomes
obstructed or damaged, the remaining arteries compensate for the defective part
by supplying the entire brain with blood (fig. 2.23). Thus, the circle of Willis is
a safety or self-preservation mechanism that becomes active in injuries or disease
by supplying the entire brain with blood.
In an earlier passage Willis discusses the inosculation of the carotid arter-
ies: “And here we cannot sufficiently admire so provident (and to be equalled
by no mechanical Art) a dispensation of the blood within the confines of the
Fig. 2.23. Circle of Willis. Willis, Cerebri anatome (1664). Courtesy of the Lilly Li-
brary.
Brain.” His claim emphasizes the argument for design and his admiration for
the “Divine workmanship of the Deity” more than it takes a genuinely anti-
mechanistic stance. In fact, arguably the design of many fountains found in the
exactly contemporary work Architectura curiosa nova (1664) by the Nuremberg
architect Georg Andreas Böckler (ca. 1617–1687), relies on not entirely different
principles, whereby separate water jets descend by gravity from a common res-
ervoir—instead of blood being pushed up by the heart (fig. 2.24, especially the
top level).42
Fig. 2.24. Böckler, Architectura curiosa nova (1664), plate 72.
Fig. 2.25. The eye as a camera obscura. Scheiner, Rosa ursina (1626), 30.
Mechanisms between Representation and Idealization

René Descartes attributed great significance to visualization and relied on it
extensively in his works, starting from Discours de la méthode and Dioptrique
(1637). By that time there existed a vast literature on mechanical devices from
antiquity to de Caus’s more recent Les raisons des forces mouvantes (1615). De
Caus’s work included images of the French king’s grottoes that Descartes com-
pares to a statue resembling the human body in the opening of Treatise on Man,
where he also explicitly refers to “clocks, artificial fountains, and mills.” Des-
cartes also compares the nervous system to a church organ, where the heart
and arteries correspond to the bellows, the nerves to the pipes of the organ, the
fingers of the organist to the external objects. Descartes relied on the growing
Fig. 2.26. The eye as a camera obscura. Descartes, La dioptrique (1637). Courtesy of
the Lilly Library.
body of increasingly complex machinery and probably on the relevant illustrated

literature as well.43
Here I wish to focus on a few examples concerning visual perception, the
valves in the heart, and the transmission of visual—and other—sensations to
the brain; as we will see, these topics lent themselves to especially instructive
representations. In Dioptrique Descartes explicitly compares the eye to a camera
obscura, a device that was gaining increasing attention in several circles in those
years. A few years earlier Jesuit astronomer Christoph Scheiner (1573–1650) had
proceeded along similar lines in Rosa ursina (1626–1630): notice in fig. 2.25 the
camera obscura marked as “Ars” on the left and the eye marked as “Natura” on
the right, both accompanied by a system of lenses. Descartes’s figure shows a
man looking behind a human or bovine eye and seeing the image reflected on the
retina, thus using the eye like an investigative device (fig. 2.26).44
Although Descartes had a sustained interest in anatomical matters, carried
out anatomical investigations and dissections, had epistolary exchanges with
anatomists, and collaborated with them, he was no trained anatomist, as he him-
self implied. While many interested parties could engage with dissection, vivi-
section was a different matter, requiring much greater skills. At a time when vivi-
section was becoming increasingly central, as in the structural works by Aselli
and Pecquet on the milky veins and thoracic duct, for example, or in the study
of bodily actions, as with Harvey, Descartes shows notable weakness in this area.
In his eagerness to find mechanistic explanations, he notoriously failed to ap-
preciate fully the implications of Harvey’s identification of the active phase as
systole in the heartbeat, one Harvey had painstakingly demonstrated on the basis
of vivisections of cold-blooded and of warm-blooded animals just before death.
According to Descartes’s implausible account both in Discours de la méthode and
in the posthumous Treatise on Man, the heart would normally be in what Harvey
took as its systolic state; periodically the heart would inflate as a result of blood
expanding due to the heart’s heat. This expansion was Harvey’s diastole, or relax-
ation, the state observed in dead animals, which therefore could not possibly be
one of expansion due to heat. Moreover, the Cartesian account seems ill suited to
the muscular structure of the heart.45
By contrast, Descartes’s younger contemporary and to some extent fellow
mechanist Giovanni Alfonso Borelli (1608–1679) fully grasped the power of
Harvey’s demonstration. Much like Descartes, Borelli was not a trained anat-
omist, though he too had deep and long-standing interests in the field, collab-
orated and corresponded with several anatomists, and authored an influential
treatise, De motu amimalium (1680–1681). In discussing the merits of a range of
possible explanations for the heartbeat, Borelli did not question Harvey’s analysis
and identified the active phase as systole and the passive one as diastole, present-
ing various explanatory accounts. For example, he compared nerves to leaky taps
whence an irritating nervous fluid exudes, inducing contractions. Borelli also hy-
pothesized that the heart could move not because of a mechanical necessity but
by an animal faculty acting by mere habit, as when we blink if someone moves a
hand close to our eye, or like that of trained musicians playing their instruments
without consciously thinking about it. Thus, Borelli envisaged a tripartite dis-
tinction for muscular motions: some occur with a mechanical necessity, others
are due to the conscious action of the soul, while some intermediate ones are still
due to the soul but by habit and “sine advertentia.”46
Treatise on Man is especially complex because almost all of its images were lost
and had to be recreated in order to make portions of the text fully intelligible. The
1662 Latin translation by Florentius Schuyl and the 1664 edition in the original
French by Claude Clerselier are based on vastly different forms of representation:
those in Schuyl’s edition were mostly copper engravings, those in Clerselier’s were
woodcuts Clerselier had commissioned to Louvain anatomy professor Gérard van
Gutschoven (1615–1668) and Saumur physician Louis de la Forge (1632–1666).47
A case relevant to our previous discussion involves the valves in the heart in
Schuyl’s edition. Unlike Vesalius, who simply called them membranes and repre-
sented them without providing any sense of how they operate, Schuyl sought to
bring together structural and what we may call functional concerns. He also used
the terms “valvula” and “pellicula,” while the original French has “petit portes”
(the French for “little doors”) and “peaux” (membranes). His plate includes mov-
able flaps showing the inside of the heart with its eleven membranes in four
valves and four pins inserted so as to highlight the direction of blood flow, seek-
ing to show how they operate, much like we would use arrows today (fig. 2.27).
While Harvey had used four snapshots and Walaeus had shown a ligature with
a bulge of chyle on one side, Schuyl employed the orientations of the pins to
show directionality, much like the Danish anatomist Thomas Bartholin had
done in Anatomia reformata (1651). However, here only two pins are shown go-
ing through the corresponding valves (tricuspid, marked 1, 2, 3; mitral, marked
10, 11), in the other two cases the pins still show the direction of blood flow but
valves and pins appear disjointed.48
Unlike most plates we have seen so far, several figures in Descartes’s Treatise
on Man seek to offer visual renderings of mechanisms as schematic diagrams
with no pretense to anatomical accuracy. An especially interesting case involves
Descartes’s account of muscular motion, specifically the muscles moving the eye:
besides the plates in Schuyl’s edition (fig. 2.28) and in Clerselier’s, by both van
Gutschoven (fig. 2.29, marked G) and de la Forge (fig. 2.30, marked F), here
we also find a rare example of Descartes’s own image (fig. 2.31, marked D). His
account relies on antagonistic muscles, one of which would overpower the other,
Fig. 2.27. Heart valves. From Latin translation by Florentius Schuyl of Descartes,
De homine (1662). Courtesy of the Lilly Library.
depending on the influx of animal spirits—a subtle fluid flowing through the
nerves responsible for motion and sensation—through a “valvula” (Schuyl’s edi-
tion) or “une certaine petit peau” (Clerselier’s edition), a small membrane HFI or
Hfi, visible in all the images. Descartes’s ingenious arrangement is an attempt to
tie an anatomical structure to its mechanical operation.49
Further, Descartes refers to tubes and filaments in the nerves responsible for
external sensation and muscular motion; while the motions and vibrations of
Fig. 2.28. Eye rotation. From Latin translation by Schuyl of Descartes, De homine
(1662), 20. Courtesy of the Lilly Library.
those filaments would transmit external sensory experiences to the brain, the
tubes enclosing them would convey animal spirits to the muscles, thus explain-
ing muscular motion in a hydraulic fashion. Thus, in this case one structure
would serve a dual purpose because the same nerves would account for motion
and sensation, depending on whether they convey a fluid or their inner filaments
shake and vibrate. Not surprisingly, the Latin edition by Schuyl uses the same
plate to represent motive and sensory nerves (fig. 2.32). Descartes distinguished
sensory and motor functions, though he did not consider that different nerves
perform those functions, and in fact he explicitly denies it in the fourth part of
Fig. 2.29. Eye rotation. Plate by van Gutschoven, from Descartes, L’ homme (1664), 16.
Dioptrique. The hypothetical structure of the nerves gestures toward an account

of how images would be transmitted from the retina to the brain according to
Descartes, as interpreted in Schuyl’s and Clerselier’s editions (fig. 2.33).50
Undoubtedly Treatise on Man should be treated with care because it was an
unfinished posthumous work that Descartes felt needed longer investigations if it
were to represent his considered views, as Gideon Manning and Cindy Klestinec
have recently reminded us. In their opinion Descartes wished to check his state-
ments and was therefore careful in the publications that appeared in his lifetime,
displaying “a caution that ought to be praised.” His account of the heartbeat,
Fig. 2.30. Eye rotation. Plate by de la Forge, from Descartes, L’ homme (1664), 18.
however, was not the only problematic topic Descartes put forward in his life-
time, both in Discours de la méthode as well as in Les passions de l’ âme (1649),
his last publication that appeared the year before he died. In fact, in Passions
Descartes discussed several anatomical matters with words precisely echoing
Treatise on Man.51 In the case of the internal structure of the optic nerve and the
transmission of visual sensations, for example, we can be confident that Treatise
on Man closely echoes Descartes’s pondered views because he had put forward
very similar opinions throughout his life, from his early publication, Dioptrique
(1637), to Les passions de l’ âme:
And I have made it evident in the Diopt[r]icks, how all the objects of the sight are
not communicated to us any way but thus; they move locally, (by mediation of
transparent bodies between them and us) those little thredds of the Optick nerves,
Fig. 2.31. Eye rotation. Plate by Descartes, from L’ homme (1664), 17. Courtesy of the
Lilly Library.
which are at the bottome of our eyes, and after them, the places of the brain from
whence those nerves come: they move them, I say, as many severall kinds of wayes,
as there are diversities of objects in things; nor are they immediatly the motions
made in the eye, but in the brain, that represent these objects to the Soul.52
It was this account of an anatomical structure and its mode of operation,

clearly representing Descartes’s considered opinion, that Marcello Malpighi
(1628–1694) challenged in 1665, when he showed that the optic nerve of the
swordfish consisted of a membrane enveloping not a bunch of tubes with isolated
threads free to shake and vibrate but something entirely different, resembling a
folded cloth, thus challenging Descartes’s hypothetical mechanism of nervous
perception (fig. 2.34). Malpighi assumed from the uniformity of nature that var-
ious organs would be structured and work in similar ways in different animals.
Fig. 2.32. Nervous tubules. From Latin trans-
lation by Schuyl of Descartes, De homine (1662),
19. Courtesy of the Lilly Library.
Fig. 2.33. Nervous tubules. Descartes-

Clerselier, L’ homme (1664), 15. Courtesy of
the Lilly Library.
The swordfish was especially useful because of the large size of its optic nerve;
this is a classic example of what Johann Conrad Peyer (1653–1712) called the
“microscope of nature,” or the notion that in some instances nature shows some
structures much enlarged. Although his finding questioned Descartes’s struc-
tural and functional account, Malpighi would have welcomed an anatomically
sound mechanistic explanation of sense perception, not the fanciful one envis-
aged by Descartes.53
There are interesting parallels and tensions between Descartes and Malpighi.
Both shared a mechanistic framework: Descartes played a key role in setting
the agenda for a mechanistic anatomy putting forward a plethora of hypothet-
ical structures and modes of operations. As Evan Ragland among others has
recently argued, Descartes was seen by his anatomically savvy contemporaries
and immediate successors as hopelessly doctrinaire, especially with regard to his
defective understanding of the heartbeat and arterial pulse, and with vivisection
more broadly. By contrast, Malpighi made major contributions to anatomy but
only rarely was he able to tie his mechanistic program to his anatomical find-
ings. For example, Malpighi identified in many organs what he called “glands”
as the key microscopic filtration devices mechanically separating fluids without
having recourse to faculties or special powers and qualities; his glands involve a
relation between the shapes of openings and particles—like a simpler version of
Boyle’s lock and key—combined with Hooke’s emphasis on miniaturization. In
some cases, as with the glomeruli in the kidneys, for example, he detected them
and described their external appearances as resembling apples on an apple tree,
though he was unable to grasp from that their internal structure and mode of
operation, which he had to infer a priori based on his mechanistic worldview.54
Visualization of Microscopic Mechanisms

The writings of Marcello Malpighi and Robert Hooke include extensive dis-
cussions of microscopic structures. Hooke was less daring and interventionist,
whereas Malpighi pushed microscopy to the limits it could reach at the time.
It was Hooke, however, who produced some of the most memorable images in
this domain. Indeed, while Malpighi’s work on plant structures was generously
illustrated, his animal anatomy was not. One of the few images he produced
showed a preparation of the tongue with its sensory receptors, presenting them as
mechanical tools receptive to differently shaped particles rubbing on them (fig.
2.35).55
In his posthumous work, Malpighi relied on these findings to put forward a
detailed mechanistic view of sense perception, thus returning to the issue he had
addressed in his 1665 critique of Descartes. Although his account differs in the
details from the one provided by Descartes, it closely echoes Cartesian themes
Fig. 2.34. Optic nerve of the swordfish. Malpighi, De cerebro (1665), in Opera omnia.
he had challenged approximately thirty years earlier, highlighting the difficulties

faced by mechanistic anatomists with their limited toolkit. Malpighi relied on
the available anatomical evidence, such as the existence of nervous fibers, the
long-standing belief in the existence of animal spirits, which were thought to
flow through the nerves, and the existence of glands in the cerebral cortex filter-
ing those spirits. He believed that with the help of mechanics the operations of
the senses and memory could be grasped:
It is certain that the structure of the brain is a composition of pierced ropes, which
continuously receive a fluid, which can make them more or less taut; and being
these taut and placed with skill like the strings of a lyre, it follows that in having a
small movement in the organs of the external senses, which are the extremities of
Fig. 2.35. Sensory receptors on the tongue. Malpighi, De lingua (1665), in Opera omnia.
the nerves, from the agitation of light in the eye, of air in the ears, of salts on the
tongue, of solids on the skin, and from the internal fluids on the roots of the nerves,
necessarily there originates a tremor in the body of the nerves, and subsequently
in their endings, where they are disposed, and taut. And this will be the physical
motion of the internal senses, whose properties can be discussed with probable
reasoning by analogy to mechanics.56
Much like Descartes, Malpighi too has recourse to a musical analogy: this time
it is to a lyre whose strings whose tension and vibrations are regulated by the
amount of nervous fluid they contain and the external stimuli they receive. De-
spite Malpighi’s cautious optimism, the boundary between reliable anatomical
investigations and a mechanistic interpretation was not clearly defined—witness
the reference to “probable reasoning” at the end of the passage and the adverb
“necessarily” slightly above, highlighting a tension and a form of a priori reason-
ing. Many among his contemporaries and successors found such accounts un-
convincing. On the basis of elaborate injections, for example, Ruysch questioned
the existence of secretory glands in the cerebral cortex, let alone explanations of
cerebral functions based on them.57
Although Hooke broadly shared in a mechanistic agenda, his techniques of
microscopic investigation and representation differed from Malpighi’s. While
Malpighi “tortured” his specimens by staining, boiling, peeling, and injecting
them, Hooke compared microscopy to innocent peeping through a window, con-
trasting it with brutally interventionist vivisection. Hooke’s images at times mag-
nify and offer structures visible with the naked eye in somewhat greater detail;
other times they highlight features in the immediately subvisible realm. In both
cases images were expected to reveal hidden mechanisms explaining macroscopic
features, a hope shared by Malpighi.58
Hooke was a better draftsman than Malpighi and his images were generally
larger, a statement applying also to some images that Malpighi had drawn by
an artist, such as that of the tongue. Here I wish to discuss two related images
showing offensive parts in stinging nettle and bees. There are striking parallels
but also differences between them, as Hooke makes clear. Both plant and insect
are endowed with a stinging apparatus hollow on the inside and functioning like
a syringe, whereby an irritating fluid is injected into the victim; the thorns and
sting appear especially menacing enlarged by the microscope, as evidenced by
the minute details of those structures. However, Hooke also identifies significant
differences: the thorns of stinging nettle consist of a hard needle and a softer por-
tion resembling green leather bags (fig. 2.36); the apparatus empties an irritating
fluid while stinging—as Hooke experienced firsthand while observing under the
microscope. In addition, the aculeus of the bee includes hooks preventing it from
being extracted from the flesh once it has entered (fig. 2.37); thus, a portion is
left inside the wound, increasing the victim’s discomfort.59 Stinging nettle and
bees do not irritate simply because they have an irritating property—like opium
having a dormitive property; in both cases, Hooke provides compelling visual
evidence in the form of mechanisms working like syringes both injuring our
skin and injecting an irritating fluid. While the sensation produced by the irri-
tating fluid may be difficult to explain in a mechanistic framework, the purely
mechanical one of injuring the skin was not. Thus, Alan Gabbey’s claim, “No
physical construction can represent the five sensory qualities” (my emphasis), is
problematic for touch—with the sensations of smoothness or roughness, for ex-
ample—which, not surprisingly, provided the exemplar for other ones, such as
taste, as we have seen with Malpighi’s tongue.60
One may well wonder to what extent it is legitimate to call some of the struc-
tures we have been reviewing “mechanisms.” In this case, however, we are on
rather solid ground because Hooke himself employs the term mechanism in the
discussion of the bee sting and, by his own analogy, nettles. He does so not in
the main text of the observation on the bee’s sting but in the index, where he
states that Observation 34 provides “a description of its shape, mechanisme, and
use.” This is one of the first occurrences of the term, perhaps the first accom-
panied by an image.61 Hooke’s brief characterization frames the mechanism of
the bee’s sting between its shape and use, seemingly bridging structure and pur-
pose. A closer study of the occurrences and meanings of the term mechanism in
seventeenth-century England requires a different type of investigation, one I
shall carry out in my next chapter. Here I wish to add another instance to the
visual evidence we have been exploring.
There are a number of other instances in Micrographia in which Hooke pres-
ents images he explicitly associates with mechanisms, including insects, plants,
Fig. 2.36. Stinging nettle. Hooke, Micrographia (1665), scheme XV. Courtesy of the
Lilly Library.
and even rock formations and snowflakes. Some of the most memorable images
come from the world of insects; Hooke identified “mechanisms” in the feet of
flies, for example (fig. 2.38). Here his insatiable curiosity, mechanical ingenuity,
and graphic skills joined forces in uncovering structures and explaining their op-
erations, thus shedding light on the peculiar behavior of flies. Why do they climb
up vertical sheets of glass or hang upside down from ceilings? Do their feet exude
a substance enabling the flies to stick to surfaces? If this were the case, how could
they disentangle themselves? Or are they so light as to require no support? “They
cannot make themselves so light, as to stick or suspend themselves on the under
surface of a Glass well polish’d and cleans’d; their suspension therefore is wholly
to be ascrib’d to some Mechanical contrivance in their feet; which, what it is, we
Fig. 2.37. Bee sting. Hooke, Micrographia (1665), scheme XV. Courtesy of the Lilly
Library.
shall in brief explain, by shewing, that its Mechanism consists principally in two
parts, that is, first its two Claws, or Tallons, and secondly, two Palms, Pattens,
or Soles.”62 Hooke describes in detail the many mechanisms involved in enabling
flies to climb vertical walls and hang from ceilings; he compared some of those
mechanisms (such as those marked ee in Figure 1) to “Wire teeth of a Card used
for working Wool” (fig. 2.39).63
A Brief Coda: Govert Bidloo’s Anatomia

The monumental Anatomia humani corporis (1685), by Govert Bidloo (1649–
1713), provides probably the most extensive visual documentation of the human
body of the seventeenth century. The 105 folio plates by renowned neoclassi-
Fig. 2.38. Feet of flies. Hooke, Micrographia (1665), scheme XXIII. Courtesy of the
Lilly Library.
Fig. 2.39. The most famous seventeenth-century wool-carding implement. Courte-

sy of the Lilly Library. Descartes, Homme, 1664, 76.
cal artist Gerard de Lairesse present the human body in a radically different
way compared to Vesalius, emphasizing what one could call a ”view from the
morgue”; they deserve a closer study going well beyond the scope of the present
work. However, a brief analysis of some of these plates seems appropriate to the
present discussion for a number of reasons: they are among the most striking ex-
amples of spatial representations of the human body, highlighting the role of per-
spective and shading; they purport to illustrate several microscopic mechanisms,
especially those put forward by Malpighi, although here too, as with Descartes,
there is a tension between representation and idealization; and, lastly, they echo
in creative ways some of the plates we have seen thus far.64
For example, at the bottom of a full plate devoted to the heart, Bidloo in-
cludes the figure of a sectioned heart pierced by four pins. While some plates in
his Anatomia, such as those of the skeleton, for example, clearly echo Vesalian
motives, others have been praised for their striking naturalism or realism. The
present figure (fig. 2.40), however, highlights in addition the dialogue with older
sources even for a seemingly naturalistic plate: Bidloo’s heart combines elements
from the corresponding figures in Vesalius’s Fabrica (fig. 2.10) and Schuyl’s edi-
tion of Descartes’s De homine (fig. 2.27). Although there are no movable flaps
here, the angles between the two halves of the heart and among the pins enhance
the three-dimensional effect.65
Although “glands” occupy a key place in his mechanistic architecture of the
body, Malpighi did not include images of them in his key works on the topic,
De viscerum structura (1666–1668) and De structura glandularum conglobatarum
(1689). Bidloo was less shy and routinely showed the structures Malpighi had
described. Malpighi’s “glands” included some that were shown about the time of
his death to be artifacts of his preparation techniques. He also believed he had
detected in fish brains nervous fibers, which he compared to an ivory comb. As
Luigi Belloni has shown, Bidloo produced an image as if he had seen Malpighi’s
glands and nervous fibers through the microscope; the image seemingly relies on
the verbal description of the cerebral structures Malpighi had provided.66
A recent study of the representation of the skin has highlighted a tension
between figures relying on microscopy in Bidloo’s work and the “new materi-
ality” of many plates: in one case the tiny microscopic portion of the skin is
shown as being held by two pins appearing to be grossly out of proportion with
the diminutive size of the object under investigation, thus raising questions as
to Bidloo’s agenda and practices. There are several instances in which Bidloo
apparently shows images based on Malpighi’s text and his own fantasy rather
than the microscope. For example, it stretches credulity that Bidloo would had
seen under the microscope the “glands” D in a portion of the kidney with an un-
canny resemblance to an egg whisk (fig. 2.41): CC represent blood vessels; E and
Fig. 2.40. Sectioned heart. Bidloo, Anatomia corporis humani (1685), plate 22.9. Cour-
F urinary vessels whole and cut, respectively; G and H portions of the papillary
body and ureter. Those who followed Malpighi’s instructions, as Luigi Belloni
has shown, saw something very different. Most of the original drawings by de
Lairesse for Bidloo’s Anatomia have survived, although they significantly do not
include one for glands in the cerebral cortex nor one for glands in the kidney.67
Regardless of whether early modern anatomists advocated an encompassing
mechanistic approach to the study of nature, many explained specific processes
by relying on mechanisms and represented them visually. Even those opposed
to overall mechanistic interpretations, from Vesalius to Harvey, relied on mech-
anistic accounts in specific cases and included images of mechanisms. While it
would be misleading to present a history focusing exclusively on problem solving
applied to individual cases, ignoring our authors’ wider philosophical perspec-
tives, it would be equally misleading to focus exclusively on those wider per-
spectives while ignoring the specific solutions offered to individual problems.
Such an approach would focus on what we may call “intellectual purity” while
ignoring the progressive shift toward mechanistic explanations that occurred in
the seventeenth century, even with investigators who did not subscribe to the
mechanical philosophy.
Anatomical illustrations constitute a vast domain relying on a wide range
of graphic styles and conventions developing over time: some images were em-
inently descriptive, without any pretense of rendering actions and functions.
However, others pointed to operations, as with hinged and interlocking bones;
Fig. 2.41. Renal glands. Bidloo, Anatomia corporis humani (1685), 43.5. Courtesy of the
Lilly Library.
unidirectional valves in the heart, veins, and chyliferous and lymphatic vessels;
ducts conveying fluid without attraction, as with Pecquet’s thoracic duct; vascu-
lar anastomoses, securing a blood supply to the brain as in the circle of Willis;
nettle’s thorns and bee’s stings, as seen by Hooke; and no doubt many others.
Anatomical features were compared to human artifacts, old and new, from hing-
es to sluices and syringes.68
Not surprisingly, seventeenth-century anatomical images do not rely on more
modern graphic conventions involving boxes and arrows, blow-up diagrams, geo-
metric shapes, plus and minus signs, color coding, and time lapse snapshots.
Rather, they instantiate mechanisms within graphic conventions of the time that
have not attracted the attention they deserve. This state of affairs is doubly un-
satisfactory: on the one hand, seemingly simple and straightforward anatomical

illustrations conceal mechanisms that have largely escaped scholarly attention;
on the other hand, many anatomical illustrations across the entire chronological
span I explored here, from Vesalius to Hooke, may appear deceptively traditional
from today’s standards, but were in fact remarkably novel and creative by the
standard of the time. There is nothing routine or traditional in Vesalius’s skull
sutures and pelvic bones, Harvey’s operational sequence on the valves in a human
arm, Walaeus’s ligatures, Pecquet’s in situ and isolated thoracic duct, Ruysch’s
injected valves, Willis’s anastomosed vessels, and Malpighi’s microscopic struc-
tures, not to mention Hooke’s stunning plates. The images we have seen involved
elaborate and sophisticated techniques of both investigation and representation.
There are interrelations between visual representations and mechanisms in
the early modern period, when mechanisms where primarily mechanical devices:
if a process could be rendered visually, then it was a candidate for a mechanistic
interpretation. Hydraulics, pneumatics, and especially subtle fluid often played a
crucial role in mechanistic explanations, though even the subtlest of fluids often
has to go through material pipes and valves. By contrast, the operations of Aris-
totelian and Galenic faculties cannot be represented visually in principle. While
it is tempting to see mechanistic approaches and visual representations as going
hand in hand, we cannot ignore that their relations were complex and problem-
atic: fictitious or real representations could refute mechanistic interpretations, as
with Vesalius’s kidney or Malpighi’s optic nerve of the swordfish, for example.
Nevertheless, an argument could be made about the existence of a link between
the rise of visual representation both in anatomy and in the world of mechani-
cal devices, and the development of a way of seeing and interpreting the world
mechanistically: both supported each other and relied on a spatial understanding
of the world.
Images, especially printed ones, played a major role in the study of nature in
the early modern period. Some historians of art and science have singled out the
emergence of perspective and a cluster of techniques of representations enhanc-
ing three-dimensional effects associated with it as a key development. Although
some of their claims have been rightly challenged in areas such as theoretical
mechanics, some of their intuitions contain fertile insights. My argument revisits
some of those intuitions: I focus less on pinpoint perspectival accuracy than on a
broader focus on the interplay between spatial rendering and mechanical under-
standing of the role of devices and their component parts, and visualization evi-
dent in the works of early modern technicians, artisans, and scholars, as Pamela
Smith and Pamela Long, among others, have recently argued.69
Some images rely on the microscope, though even here there are significant
differences with more modern ones. Arguably, the majority of mechanisms in
contemporary biology relate to microscopic entities at the cellular or molecular

level. In the seventeenth century most microscopic investigations revealed either
structures visible with the naked eye in greater detail or structures immediately
below the visible level, mostly insects and plants. Malpighi was the leading mi-
croscopic anatomist of the time who relied extensively on visual representation,
especially in his works on the silkworm and plants, although in both domains
he did not emphasize mechanisms. Hooke emerged as a key figure, the one who
identified and represented a range of mechanical devices, from pendulums and
hooks to syringes and spikes: the “English Leonardo” had a brilliant mechanical
intuition, was a talented draftsman, and a pioneering microscopist at the same
time. He usage of the term mechanism calls for a study of the usage and meaning
of this key term in the seventeenth century.
Chapter 3
“The Very Word Mechanism”
As we have seen in chapter one, the meaning of the term mechanism shifted
over time. Its usage is not coextensive with the concept, since the latter could be
implied without the former being employed. Debates and controversies provide
a context for interpreting our term, which, reciprocally, contributes to shedding
light on a changing intellectual terrain. I am especially interested in the original
meaning of the term, the contexts in which it was used, and the intellectual
affiliation of the authors who used it, as well as the set of notions and beliefs
contrasted with it. A focused investigation, both geographically and chronologi-
cally, can be useful in several respects. I wish to study the early usage of the term
mechanism especially in published sources from the second half of seventeenth-
century Britain, English being the language in which the term was used with
notable frequency from an early time.1 I focus on the time from the early 1650s
to the 1680s, from the aftermath of Descartes to the heyday of the mechanical
philosophy. The frequency with which our term occurs increased steadily; in the
final decades of the century occurrences became so common that a study of this
type would require a different style of inquiry. Therefore a later section discusses
the shifting meanings of the terms mechanism and organism around 1700 in a
specific context between London and Halle, whereas a brief coda focuses on a
small selection of figures in mid-eighteenth-century France, mostly related to the
Montpellier medical school.
The term mechanism stems from machine and mechanical, with the suffix -ism
marking the abstract noun.2 Cognate expressions too were used at the time, such
as contrivance, especially with the qualifier mechanical, or in Latin “artificium
mechanicum.” Moreover, the notions of “machine” and “mechanics” too are
quite complex and were in a state of flux in the early modern period in several
respects. Jole Shackelford, for example, has discussed puzzling occurrences of the
term mechanics in some passages by Paracelsus and his Danish follower Petrus
Severinus, arguing convincingly that they are not linked to simple machines and
79
80 “The Very Word Mechanism”
related domains but are better seen in connection with the activity of an artificer,
which could be an immaterial archeus. Moreover, Vera Keller has recently shown
that some artificial machines were seen as alive, blurring and problematizing
distinctions even further.3
While occasionally I will mention cognate expressions, for practical reasons
my main focus here is on the usage of the actual term mechanism. The differences
and overlap in meaning across different periods make the linguistic study rele-
vant to grasping some aspects of how the notion was used and understood over
time. My citations below follow closely the original spelling, capitalization, and
italicization: my only intervention is italicizing our term for ease of reference.
Our term has become so appealing and pervasive that it is often used in English
translations when it is lacking in the original Latin or French by Harvey or Des-
cartes, for example, who employ more or less distant cognate terms instead. My
study is limited to the usage of the term by the historical actors—as opposed to
modern translations.
The term mechanism is currently used in a precise technical sense, but also
more loosely, meaning broadly “way of operating,” without any actual reference
to what a mechanistic perspective would imply or what one could call “mecha-
nism” in a strict sense. The looser meaning is not a recent phenomenon and can
be documented already in the eighteenth century. In our times an influential
work states that in Renaissance natural philosophy Nature “worked through a
panoply of mechanisms, from the astral influences and the imagination of pre-
ternatural philosophy to the collision of matter in motion of mechanical philos-
ophy.”4 Clearly the world of astral influences, the imagination of preternatural
philosophy, and colliding bodies in a post-Cartesian world are such different
domains that one wonders whether the term mechanism is appropriate for all of
them. While in a loose sense this usage can be seen as legitimate, I believe it is
unhelpful in that it misses the opportunity to clarify what the authors and their
contemporary readers would have meant in a more rigorous way. While the pri-
mary focus of my contribution is the historical usage and meaning of our term, I
also hope to stimulate greater awareness among historians and philosophers, and
to suggest a more rigorous and sensitive usage of this key term.
Early Occurrences to the 1650s

The term mechanism makes a few sporadic appearances before the Restoration.
An early usage is due to Paracelsian alchemist Timothy Willis (1560–ca. 1620),
author of The Search of Causes, Containing a Theophysicall Investigation of the Pos-
sibilitie of Transmutatorie Alchemie (1616). His work is nothing less than an al-
chemical interpretation of the Biblical story of creation. Willis argues that much
like potters working with clay and sculptors working with wood, nature’s activity
“The Very Word Mechanism” 81
is free at the outset but bound by her own creation at the end, meaning that once
a form has been imposed on matter, no other form can take its place without
destroying the previous one. Willis draws a contrast, however, between nature’s
free activity and the constrained actions of the craftsmen, implying that nature
does not operate mechanically like them: “Clay in the potters hand, and wood
in the grauers, are in the workemans power to forme at his pleasure, Indifferent
to all shapes: So is the efficient cause in the minde of the Artist. / But after one
forme induced there is no place for any other without destroiing the first. So Na-
ture (though not abridged, and so short tyed as mechanisme) before the specificall
perfection of any thing, is free to any thing.”5
In Natures Explication and Helmont’s Vindication (1658) Harvard-trained
alchemist and medical practitioner George Starkey (1628–1665) emphasizes a
different aspect. He uses the term mechanism not to contrast mechanical and
nonmechanical processes but seemingly to emphasize the regularity of a process.
He draws a distinction between the soul, which is like a man in man, using an
effect for merely finding its causes as opposed to finding “new hidden truth”:
And this I shall adde, that the soul, which is a I may say ipse in homine homo,
when once an effect is apparent, and so known, as to become a mechanism, doth no
farther any more reap content from it, unless it be in reference to some deduction it
gathers from it, to the finding out of some new hidden truth; nor doth the soul ever
feed on it more as upon its object, originally, / directly, and in an absolute consid-
eration, no more then in the knowing how to make a fire, or that the fire will burn,
boyl, dry, &c.6
Other occurrences can be found in the writings of Scottish royalist author Sir
Thomas Urquhart (1611–1660), who uses mechanism for a mechanical profes-
sion, together with a number of others, such as “Merchandizing, Scholarship,
Husbandry, Mechanism, Nobility, Gentry, Disport, Exercise,” etc.,7 and Gilbert
Burnet (1643–1715), future bishop of Salisbury, who used the term with a sim-
ilar meaning: “He had also studied Mechanism, and all such / things as might
improve a Society.”8 These early occurrences emphasize mechanical operations in
contrast to natural ones, not only in relation to the limitations of mechanism but
also with regard to the regularity of an action and to practical activities.
Mechanism and the Immaterial Soul

The writings of Cambridge Platonist Henry More (1614–1687) contain some es-
pecially interesting early occurrences of the term mechanism; it is with More that
the contexts of the debates about our term crystallize. More was both a divine and
a natural philosopher, a correspondent of Descartes who in 1664 was elected a
fellow of the Royal Society. More defended the existence of an active immaterial
Spirit of Nature, or “hylarchick principle,” in order to explain many phenomena

then being debated, such as those related to Boyle’s celebrated experiments on the
elasticity of the air.9 One year before the Restoration More published The Immor-
tality of the Soul (1659), an apologetic work in which he denied activity to matter
and in the preface of which he used the expression “Mechanical Philosophy,” as we
have seen above. Referring to a passage from The Passions of the Soul, More attacked
Descartes’s views, according to which animals are merely complex machines and
even many actions in humans are not dependent on the soul or the will but result
necessarily from the motions of the body-machine in reactions to external stimuli.
In the contemporary English translation Descartes’s passage reads:
If any one lift up his hand on a sudden towards our eyes, as if he were about to
strike, although we know he is our friend, that he does this only in jest, and that
he will be carefull enough not to doe us any hurt, yet wee can scarce refrain from
shutting them: which shews it is not by the intermedling of our soul that they shut,
since it is against our will, which is the only, or at least the principall Action thereof;
but by reason this machine of our body is so composed, that the moving of this
hand up towards our eyes, excites another motion in our brain which conveys the
animal spirits into those muscles that close the eye-lids.10
In his rejoinder More questions both Descartes’s empirical assertion and its in-
terpretation:
For the wafting of one’s hand neare the Eye of a mans friend, is no sufficient proof
That externall Objects will necessarily and Mechanically determine the Spirits
into the Muscles, no Faculty of the Soule intermedling. For if one be fully assured,
or rather can keep himself from the fear of any hurt, by the wafting of his friends
Hand before his Eye, he may easily abstain from winking: But if fear surprise him,
the Soule is to be entitled to the action, and not the meer Mechanisme of the Body.
Wherefore this is no proof that the Phaenomena of Passions, with their consequenc-
es, may be salved in brute Beasts by pure Mechanicks; and therefore neither in
Men.11
Here “mechanism” is understood in anatomical terms and applies to the ac-

tion or rather reaction of the body to an external event. In More’s passage the
body’s reaction as intended by Descartes is described as a “meer Mechanisme,”
thereby specifically excluding the action of the soul: the body’s mechanical ac-
tions are qualified by the adjective “mere,” so as to imply that the main issue at
stake among different interpreters is not simply having recourse to some forms of
mechanism but also ruling out any additional explanation. This is a significant
aspect of More’s work, because at least initially he accepted Cartesian accounts,
but he also deemed them insufficient without nonmaterial entities.12 Immortality
of the Soul goes on to argue that the immaterial soul, rather than residing only
in the head, is best understood as “pervading the whole body” and especially the
heart and stomach.13
In a subsequent work, Divine dialogues (1668), More employs the term mech-
anism a handful of times, always in conjunction with the adjective pure, as if
to emphasize that his main concern is whether only mechanistic explanations
sufficed or whether additional nonmaterial entities were required. Referring to
Descartes in the address to the reader, he states:14 “But the rest of his Philosophy
is rather pretty then great, and in that sense that he drives at, of pure Mechanism,
enormously and ridiculously false.”
Following More’s Immortality of the Soul, references to “mere” or “pure”
mechanism occurred frequently in the literature. Here I focus on Robert Boyle’s
A Free Enquiry into the Vulgarly Receiv’ d Notion of Nature (1686), a text dating
from a quarter of a century later, which discusses a theme echoing the one ad-
dressed by Descartes and More. In it, Boyle discusses a related case about the eye,
namely the adjustment of the opening of the pupil to light; he also implies that
there are other motions of the eye to which the same reasoning applies. Boyle
argues that God has admirably contrived the organ of sight, joining teleology
and mechanism: “Now the Wise and All-foreseeing Author of Things has so ad-
mirably contriv’d this Instrument of Sight, that, as it happens to be employ’d in
differing Lights, so the Bigness or Area of the Pupil varies . . . / . . . these various
Motions in the Eye are produc’d by mere Mechanism, without the Direction, or
so much as Knowledg or Perception, of the Rational Soul. And, upon the / like
Account it is, that other Motions, in several Parts belonging to the Eye, are pro-
duc’d, as ’twere spontaneously, as occasion requires.”15
This example too, like More’s, relates to a Cartesian text, namely the third
part of Dioptrique, where Descartes had argued that although we are not aware
of it, the size of the pupil is adjusted voluntarily both with regard to the attention
paid by the subject and to the degree of illumination. The matter was taken up
in the debate between Louvain medicine professors Vopiscus Fortunatus Plemp
(1601–1671) and Gérard van Gutschoven; the latter tried to defend Descartes
arguing that the will in question was that of seeing well, to which the former
objected that every physiological process could be explained in a similar way.
Thus, Descartes denied a role to the will for blinking, though he advocated it for
the adjustment of the pupil; by contrast, Boyle denied it in both circumstances.
The adjustment of the pupil was easily amenable to experimentation and indeed
several scholars, including Scheiner and Descartes, investigated the behavior of
the pupil in relation to the degree of attention exerted and lighting conditions,
including differential responses when the two eyes are exposed to lights of differ-
ent intensity simultaneously.16
In a later passage from A Free Enquiry Boyle widens his reflections, including
not only other operations of the eye but also many operations of the entire body:
We see that in Man, though the Rational Soul has so narrow a Province to take care
of, as the Human Body, and is suppos’d to be intimately united to all the Parts of
It; yet, abundance of things are done in the Body by the Mechanism of it, without
being produc’d by that Soul. Of this we may alledge, as an Instance, that, in Sleep,
the Circulation of the Blood, the regular Beating of the Heart, Digestion, Nutri-
tion, Respiration, &c. are perform’d without the immediate Agency, or so much as
the actual Knowledge, of the Mind. And, when a Man is awake, many things are
done in his Body, not only without the Direction, but against the Bent of his Mind;
as often happens in Cramps and other Convulsions, Coughing, Yawnings, &c.17
Here Boyle drastically restricts the role of the rational immaterial soul and en-
dorses the view that the operations of the body happen by “Mechanism,” or by
the internal organization of the parts. His is a major departure from traditional
Aristotelian-Galenic doctrines, which were routinely accepted until earlier in the
century, according to which a plethora of immaterial faculties, whether of the
soul or of nature—certainly not mechanisms—were responsible for most bodily
operations. In the same work Boyle extends his considerations to diseased states
as well: “Next I consider, that Critical Evacuations may be procur’d by the bare
Mechanism of the Body. For, by vertue of That, it will often happen, / that the
Fibres, or motive Organs of the Stomach, Bowels, and other Parts, being Dis-
tended or Vellicated by the Plenty or Acrimony of the Peccant Matter, will, by
that Irritation, be brought to contract themselves vigorously, and to throw out
the Matter that offends the Parts, either by the Emunctories or Common-Shores
of the Body, or by whatever Passages the proscrib’d Matter can be, with most
ease, discharg’d.”18 Once again, Boyle here subverts Galenic views, which re-
lied extensively on notions such as selective attraction and repulsion. In On the
Natural Faculties, for example, we encounter a plethora of such explanations for
diseases as diverse as jaundice and cholera, and many others besides. A reference
to our term in a therapeutic context could already be found in the anonymous
review of Pharmaceutice rationalis (1673), by Thomas Willis, in the Philosophi-
cal Transactions discussing “by what mechanism or power” various medicaments
produce their effects.19
More’s Cambridge contemporary and intellectual peer Ralph Cudworth
(1617–1688) used our term extensively in The True Intellectual System of the Uni-
verse (1678). Boyle and Cudworth were deeply religious men who had strong
apologetic motivations: the former suggested that divinely crafted material struc-
tures would be adequate to account for the living world; the latter, like More, in-
voked God’s role not only through immaterial “plastick powers” broadly related
to life (but also including minerals and the Earth as a whole) and more generally
several phenomena unrelated to life. Cudworth routinely associated the notion of
mechanism with the adjective “fortuitous”, one often associated with a challenge
to Epicureanism: according to Cudworth, since it would be unbecoming of God
“to Form every Gnat and Fly, as it were with his own hands,” living organisms
would either result from immaterial plastic natures or fortuitously. In the follow-
ing passage he singles out the regularity of nature and respiration as especially
problematic for mechanism:
That all the Effects of Nature come to pass by Material and Mechanical Necessity,
or the mere Fortuitous Motion of Matter, without any Guidance or Direction, is
a thing no less Irrational than it is Impious and Atheistical. Not only because it is
utterly Unconceivable and Impossible, that such Infinite Regularity and Artificial-
ness, as is every where throughout the whole World, should constantly result out of
the Fortuitous Motion of Matter, but also because there are many such Particular
Phaenomena in Nature, as do plainly transcend the Powers of Mechanism, of which
therefore no Sufficient Mechanical Reasons can be devised, as the Motion of Respi-
ration in Animals.20
More, Boyle, and Cudworth held different views on mechanism and the soul
and debated whether the soul was plausibly involved in bodily processes, defend-
ing opposite views on the topic. In the passages we have seen they debated how
bodily operations occurred, at times even relying on observations and experiments,
but without providing any detailed explanation of the physiological processes in-
volved. As we have mentioned in the previous chapter and as we are going to see
in the following sections, anatomists and especially microscopists such as Hooke
sought explanations of those detailed processes at the lower, component level.
Microscopy and Mechanism

Microscopy was a crucial tool in the mechanization program and provided a
key context for early occurrences of the term mechanism. In his pioneering 1664
treatise, Experimental Philosophy, Halifax physician Henry Power questioned the
wisdom of those philosophers who doubted nature’s ability to reach smaller sub-
divisions of its components, even atoms, perhaps, although he did not offer any
detailed explanation of mechanisms: “Such, I am sure, our Modern Engine (the
Microscope) wil ocularly evince and unlearn them their opinions again: for herein
you may see what a subtil divider of matter Nature is; herein we can see what the
illustrious wits of the Atomical and Corpuscularian Philosophers durst but imag-
ine, even the very Atoms and their reputed Indivisibles and least realities of Matter,
nay the curious Mechanism and organical Contrivance of those Minute Animals,
with their distinct parts, colour, figure and motion, whose whole bulk were to
them almost invisible.”21 Here Power refers to “curious Mechanism” and “organical
Contrivance,” associating the notion of mechanism to contrivances in tiny living
animals. By “organical” he means belonging to the organs of a living body; at the
end of the work he proposes to erase the distinction between natural and artificial,
when he claims that “all things are Artificial; for Nature it self is / nothing else but
the Art of God.”22 Among the key features of those mechanisms and contrivances,
Power uncharacteristically includes not only their parts or shapes, figures, and
motion but also their colors, a quality that was rarely seen as primary.
Unlike Power’s Experimental Philosophy, Hooke’s Micrographia (1665), pub-
lished one year after Power’s work, provides a wealth of details about the mecha-
nisms and contrivances he had identified, through both verbal descriptions and
remarkable plates. We shall discuss several of these occurrences below.23 In Mi-
crographia the term contrivance occurs in excess of forty times, implying both
devices made by nature and artificial ones, such as bellows. At times contrivance
is joined with mechanism, as in the following passage on clocks, moss, and plants:
“We know there may be as much curiosity of contrivance, and excellency of form
in a very small Pocket-clock, that takes not up an Inch square of room, as there
may be in a Church-clock that fills a whole room; And I know not whether all
the contrivances and Mechanisms requisite to a perfect Vegetable, may not be
crowded into an exceedingly less room then this of Moss, as I have heard of a
striking Watch so small, that it serv’d for a Pendant in a Ladies ear.”24 In com-
paring artificial and natural mechanisms here Hooke shifts across three levels of
mechanistic explanation, moving from church to pocket clocks, to one fitting
in an earring; Hooke focuses on miniaturization by implying that the complex
structure or mechanism of a perfect vegetable could fit in as small and simple one
as moss, just as the mechanism of a church clock could fit in an earring.
An occurrence of the term mechanism especially useful to our discussion can
be found not in the text but in the index of Micrographia; it states that the Ob-
servation of the sting of a bee provides “a description of its shape, mechanisme,
and use.”25 At first sight Hooke’s passage seems to echo the traditional division
of anatomy into structure or historia, action or motion, and use or purpose. His
notion of mechanism, however, cannot be identified simply with the motions of
the parts: while at times mechanism seems to bridge structures and purposes, it
also retains strong connections with both. In his discussion of snowflakes, for
example, Hooke argues that it would be impossible accurately to draw the “curi-
ous and Geometrical Mechanisme of Nature” in any snowflake, though he does
include a set of figures (fig. 3.1). In this instance the adjective geometrical points
to Nature’s way of operating in forming structures, seemingly devoid of teleolog-
ical implications. Here the emphasis is on structures, though by “Geometrical
Mechanisme” Hooke may have intended the way of operating.26
Fig. 3.1. Snowflakes. Hooke, Micrographia (1665), scheme VIII. Courtesy of the Lilly
Library.
In discussing the microstructure of a stone from the borough of Kettering,

one with a rough texture that he investigated through the microscope and de-
picted (fig. 3.2), Hooke emphasizes Nature’s “curiosity”: “But whatever were the
cause of its curious texture, we may learn this information from it; that even in
those things which we account vile, rude, and coorse, Nature has not been want-
ing to shew abundance of curiosity and excellent Mechanisme.”27
Here Hooke adopts suspension of judgment about the formation process of
a stone whose microstructure he found surprising. By “Mechanisme” he means
something like skill or craftsmanship, characters Nature would display together
with “curiosity,” in the sense of ingenuity or creativity. In his study of animal
or plant parts Hooke pointed to the purpose of the mechanisms he had iden-
tified, something he leaves out here. In the case of burnt vegetable or charcoal
he refers to the use of the mechanism he identified, but what he had in mind
was something different: the passage “It is not my design at present, to examine
the use and Mechanisme of these parts of Wood” has more to do with use to
humans rather than to the plant, whereas by “Mechanisme” he includes the idea
of structure. Similarly, in the discussion of snowflakes Hooke refers to the “pla-
stick virtue of Nature,” thus in an area where neither life nor seemingly finality
is involved.28
Fig. 3.2. Kettering stone. Hooke, Micrographia (1665), scheme IX, figure 1. Courtesy
of the Lilly Library.
On another occasion Hooke refers to the “Mechanism of Nature” with a dif-

ferent emphasis. While discussing feathers, for example, he identifies a remark-
able structure that in his opinion serves a double purpose:
Very strong bodies are for the most part very heavie also, a strength of the parts usu-
ally requiring a density, and a density a gravity; and therefore should Nature have
made a body so broad and so strong as a Feather, almost, any other way then what
it has taken, the gravity of it must necessarily have many times exceeded this, for
this pith seems to be like so many stops or cross pieces in a long optical tube, which
do very much contribute to the strength of the whole, the pores of which were such,
as that they seem’d not to have any communication with one another, as I have
elsewhere hinted.
But the Mechanism of Nature is usually so excellent, that one and the same
substance is adapted to serve for many ends. . . . Now, in a ripe Feather (as one may
Fig. 3.3. Bird feathers. Hooke, Micrographia (1665), scheme XXII. Courtesy of the
Lilly Library.
call it) it seems difficult to conceive how the Succus nutritius should be convey’d to
this pith; for it cannot, I think, be well imagin’d to pass through the substance of
the quill, since, having examin’d it with the greatest diligence I was able, I could
not find the least appearance of pores; but he that shall well examine an unripe or
pinn’d Feather, will plainly enough perceive the Vessel for the conveyance of it to be
the thin filmy pith (as tis call’d) which passes through the middle of the quill.29
Hooke attaches a teleological dimension to the organization of the feathers’

substance: specifically, he argues that the quill of feathers consists of a “congeries
of small bubbles” whose films are made of a very hard and horny substance. He
also compares the pith of feathers to the cross pieces in a “long optical tube,”
thus combining strength with lightness and avoiding the density and gravity
that would have been ill suited to a bird. Art and nature are joined here through
a relatively recent instrument, though the telescope is mentioned for a different
purpose from the one for which it was built. In addition, Hooke argues that in
“unripe” feathers the undeveloped bubbly or frothy structure in the middle of
the quill is suited to conveying nutrition, a function that ceases with growth in
mature feathers. Furthermore, the structure of the down of feathers, consisting
of a series of interlocked hooks and fibers, seems especially suited to impede air
flow and enable flight. In a passage echoing the argument for design Galen put
forward in the Epode of On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Bodies, Hooke states
that Nature knows “best its own laws” and also “how to adapt and fit them to
her designed ends.”30
In a slightly later passage, he presents an argument for design referring explic-
itly to God, whose creation or nature operates according to the best mechanical
contrivances. Here Hooke echoes the eminent divine and later bishop of Worces-
ter Edward Stillingfleet (1635–1699), who in the recently published Origines
sacrae, or, A rational Account of the Grounds of Christian Faith (1662) had argued
that it would have been “ridiculous folly . . . to impute that rare mechanism of the
works of nature to the blind and fortuitous motion of some particles of matter.”
Just as in Galen’s work, Hooke too intermixes references to Nature and to a Cre-
ator, though his emphasis differs from Galen’s, whose God is no mechanician.31
Fig. 3.4. Wings of flies. Hooke, Micrographia (1665), scheme XXVI. Courtesy of the
Lilly Library.
The world of insects was especially fertile terrain for Hooke’s microscopic in-
vestigations and reliance on the notion of mechanism; he referred to the “feet of
flies” and their wings as mechanisms, admiring their design, which he compared
to a pendulum, and mode of operation (fig. 3.4): “Whil’st I was examining and
considering the curious Mechanism of the wings, I observ’d that under the wings
of most kind of Flies, Bees, &c. there were plac’d certain pendulums or extended
drops (as I may so call them from their resembling motion and figure) for they
much resembled a long hanging drop of some transparent viscous liquor.”32
Fig. 3.5. Beard of oats and hygroscope. Hooke, Micrographia (1665), scheme XV.
He further observed that these structures—known to us as halteres—are set

in motion just before the wings begin to move and speculated that they may
serve to regulate those motions, though in this case he was uncertain about their
purpose. He also proposed alternative explanations, such as a possible use in res-
piration, whereby the “pendulums may be somewhat like the staff of a pump”—
another mechanical analogy—but then considered this second explanation as
less plausible. Either way, he compared the new structures either to a recent me-
chanical device like the pendulum, or to an older one like a pump’s staff.33
One of the farthest-reaching findings in Micrographia concerns the struc-
ture of the “beard” of wild oats. Relying on his microscope, Hooke discovered
that the filaments consisted of different threads twisted together; since they react
differently to temperature and humidity, they twist and unravel on each other
when conditions change. An especially interesting image ties natural and arti-
ficial devices: Hooke shows two portions of the beards lengthwise, one in cross
section, and at the bottom an instrument—a hygroscope—with a pointer at-
tached to a twisted thread measuring the humidity of air. The two strands of the
beard of oats are among Hooke’s least successful visual renderings, since the lack
of contrast obscures the structure of the twisted threads (fig. 3.5). Hooke was
inspired by this mechanism occurring in nature to construct a hybrid device to
measure humidity, or a hygroscope. This is an instance in which nature inspired

a partly artificial device; in this case Hooke took a natural structure in the form
of a beard of oats and constructed a measuring device with it, highlighting that
the natural-artificial interaction worked both ways. This, however, was only his
starting point, because he also tried to explain other phenomena:
This, had I time, I should enlarge much more upon; for it seems to me to be the
very first footstep of Sensation, and Animate motion, the most plain, simple, and
obvious contrivance that Nature has made use of to produce a motion, next to that
of Rarefaction and Condensation by heat / and cold. And were this Principle very
well examin’d, I am very apt to think, it would afford us a very great help to find
out the Mechanism of the Muscles, which indeed, as farr as I have hitherto been able
to examine, seems to me not so very perplex as one might imagine, especially upon
the examination which I made of the Muscles of Crabs, Lobsters, and several sorts of
large Shell-fish, and comparing my Observations on them, with the circumstances I
observ’d in the muscles of terrestrial Animals.34
More specifically, Hooke envisaged a mechanism whereby changes in humidi-

ty and other physical parameters would induce contraction and relaxation. His
mechanism bears a resemblance to Descartes’s account of muscular motion,
which would be due to the influx of fluids transmitted by the nerves:
Now, as in this Instance of the Beard of a wilde Oat, we see there is nothing else
requisite to make it wreath and unwreath it self, and to streighten and bend its
knee, then onely a little breath of moist or dry Air, or a small atome almost of water
or liquor, and a little heat to make it again evaporate; for, by holding this Beard,
plac’d and fix’d as I before directed, neer a Fire, and dipping the tip of a small shred
of Paper in well rectify’d spirit of Wine, and then touching the wreath’d Cylindrical
part, you may perceive it to untwist it self; and presently again, upon the avolation
of the spirit, by the great heat, it will re-twist it self, and thus will it move forward
and backwards as oft as you repeat the touching it with the spirit of Wine; so may,
perhaps, the shrinking and relaxing of the muscles be by the influx and evaporation
of some kind of some liquor or juice.35
About fifteen years later, in Lectiones cutlerianae, commenting on some re-

cent contribution by the Dutch microscopist and textile merchant Antonie van
Leeuwenhoek, Hooke emphasized once again the diminutive size of anatomical
structures and the explanatory potential of extreme miniaturization:
Now if the Creature be so exceeding small, what must we think of the Muscles,
Joynts, Bones, Shells, &c. certain it is, that the Mechanism by which Nature per-
forms the muscular motion is exceedingly small and curious, and to the perfor-
mance of every muscular motion in greater Animals at least, there are not fewer
distinct parts concerned than many millions of millions, and these visible, as I
shall hereafter shew through a Microscope; and those that conceive in the body of a
muscle, little more curiosity of mechanism than in a rope of the same bigness, have
a very rude and false notion of it; and no wonder if they have recourse to Spirits to
make out the Phaenomena.36
Hooke’s legacy can be seen in John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Un-
derstanding (1690), which discusses perception in plants and animals:
Perception puts the difference between animals and vegetables. This faculty of
perception seems to me to be, that which puts the distinction betwixt the animal
kingdom and the inferior parts of nature. For, however vegetables have, many of
them, some degrees of motion, and upon the different application of other bodies
to them, do very briskly alter their figures and motions, and so have obtained the
name of sensitive plants, from a motion which has some resemblance to that which
in animals follows upon sensation: yet I suppose it is all bare mechanism; and no
otherwise produced than the turning of a wild oat-beard, by the insinuation of the
particles of moisture, or the shortening of a rope, by the affusion of water. All which
is done without any sensation in the subject, or the having or receiving any ideas.37
Hooke thus emerges as a key figure in the early usage of the term mechanism:
he provided several specific examples, mostly, though not exclusively, from plants
and animals. At times he stressed organizational aspects involving structures,
motions, and purposes, though his emphasis was on the integration among all
these aspects, with an emphasis on the perfection and craftsmanship of Nature
and God: Hooke’s mechanisms were divinely designed machines.
Unlike Hooke, his fellow microscopist Marcello Malpighi did not use the
term mechanism. However, the 1668 review of his work on the structure of the
viscera, De viscerum structura, in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal So-
ciety (most likely by its secretary and editor of the journal Henry Oldenburg,
who states having received the book directly from Malpighi) does use the term
in connection with the kidneys. In his treatise Malpighi claims to have iden-
tified glandular structures: he localized the site of the filtration process in the
kidneys by injection of ink into the renal arteries, showing what he calls glom-
eruli, resembling apples attached to an apple tree (fig. 2.41). The review states:
“Discoursing of the Use of the Kidney’s he finds it difficult to explain, by what
art and mechanisme, Nature so copiously excretes by the Reins (whose glandular
structure seems to be uniforme) a liquor, which is compounded of Aqueous,
Saline, Sulphury and other particles, and sometimes the relicks of imposthums,
and other filth of the body.”38 Malpighi’s original Latin states: “quanam arte
Fig. 3.6. Coded arsmart. Grew, Anatomy of Plants (1682). Courtesy of the Lilly Li-
brary.
id contingat obscurissimum,” or literally, “it is most obscure by which art this

would occur”; therefore, the review renders “arte” as “art and mechanisme.” Both
Malpighi and the review attribute “art” (in the sense of “technē”) to nature; here,
by “mechanism” the review means an anatomical structure responsible for filtra-
tion. The review echoes Malpighi’s concerns with the problematic connection
between the structure and mode of operation of the glomeruli, which would se-
crete a wide range of substances through a seemingly uniform structure. Possibly
Malpighi was expecting a range of differently shaped glomeruli, each secreting
different types of particles. Despite his success in locating the site of filtration,
his inability to identify the specific filtration mechanisms at play is revealing and
representative of his work on glands, and of the tension between his mechanistic
program and results.
The usage of the term mechanism by Hooke and in the review of Malpighi’s
essay highlights differences between their approaches: at times Hooke visually
identified the mode of operation, whereas Malpighi’s pinpointed a structure but
was unable to show how it worked. In Hooke we notice a delight at being surprised
in detecting unpredictable mechanisms even when their theoretical implications
were not especially significant. Genuine curiosity and appreciation for beauty
played a more significant role in Hooke: the opening words of one of his sections,
“For curiosity and beauty,” capture two defining elements of his approach.39
Fig. 3.7. Spring. Hooke, Lectures de potentia restitutiva. Courtesy of the Lilly Library.
It should not come as a surprise that another occurrence of the term mech-
anism, together with an account of its component parts and their operations,
can be found in the work of another microscopic anatomist, trained by and a
friend of Hooke, Nehemiah Grew (1641–1712). Wondering why the plant coded
arsmart could project its seeds some distance away, Grew found an explanation
by comparing the membrane to which the seed is attached to a tense bow, or a
coiled spring, thus establishing an analogy between a natural and an artificial
device (figs. 3.6–7). In a wholly “Hookian” fashion, modest magnification en-
abled Grew to dispose of occult qualities or faculties and to make his account
intelligible, in that the comparison with the bow enables the viewer to grasp how
the projection occurs:
From this Mechanism, the manner of that violent and surprising Ejaculation of the
Seeds, is intelligible. Which is not a motion originally in the Seeds themselves; but
contrived by the Structure of the Case. For the Seeds hanging very loose, and not
on the Sides of / the Case, as sometimes, but on the Pole, in the Centre, with their
thicker end downward, they stand ready for a discharge: and the Sides of the Case
being lined with a strong and Tensed Membrane, they hereby perform the office of
so many little Bows: which, remaining fast at the Top, and (contrary to what we see
in other Plants) opening or being lett off at the Bottom, forceably curle upward, and
so drive all the Seeds before them.40
As Machamer, Darden, and Craver have pointed out, “intelligibility is histori-

cally constituted and disciplinary relative.” Here, in line with what we have seen
in chapter one, Grew took the discharge process to be intelligible not by having
recourse to the size, shape, and motion of hypothetical constituent particles but
rather by finding a structure whose behavior had recently been mathematically
and experimentally studied by Hooke, and which had become a component of
the most widely recognized mechanical device: the watch.41
Mechanism Debated and Defined

The term mechanism appeared in contexts besides anatomical and microscopic
investigations. A comparatively frequent usage occurred not in explanations of
specific phenomena but in the context of sermons and in controversies between
natural philosophers and divines about the nature of the new science: Early En-
glish Books Online lists close to twenty occurrences of the term mechanism in
works with the word sermon appearing in the title. The dispute among divines Jo-
seph Glanvill (1636–1680) and Thomas Sprat (1635–1713) with medical practi-
tioner and controversialist Henry Stubbe (1638–1676) is especially helpful from
our perspective, because it was in that context that Stubbe provided a definition
of our term. Their exchanges included more texts and issues than I will be able to
cover here; I will be very selective and discuss one passage from each.
In an early work, The Vanity of Dogmatizing (1661), published one year after
his ordination in the Church of England, Glanvill put forward views echoing
Henry More’s in their praise of some aspects of the new philosophy and Des-
cartes while defending the role of immaterial entities:
How the soul directs the Spirits for the motion of the Body according to the several
animal exigents; is as perplex in the theory, as either of the former. For the meatus,
or passages, through which those subtill emissaries are conveyed to the respective
members, being so almost infinite, and each of them drawn through so many mean-
ders, cross turnings, and divers roades, wherein other spirits are continually a jour-
neying; it is wonderfull, that they should exactly perform their regular destinations
without losing their way in such a wilderness: neither can the wit of man tell how
they are directed. For that they are carried by the manuduction of a Rule, is evident
from the constant steddyness and regularity of their motion into the / parts, where
their supplies are expected: But, what that regulating efficiency should be, and
how managed; is not easily determin’d. That it is performed by meer Mechanisme,
constant experience confutes; which assureth us, that our spontaneous motions are
under the Imperium of our will. At least the first determination of the Spirits into
such or such passages, is from the soul, what ever we hold of the after conveyances;
of which likewise I think, that all the philosophy in the world cannot make it out to
be purely Mechanicall.42
Here Glanvill challenges “meer Mechanisme”—the very same expression em-

ployed by More two years previously—on two grounds: first, because of the ini-
tial actions of our will; secondly, because the bewildering downstream traffic sys-
tem of the subtle fluids moving through the body could not possibly be “purely
Mechanicall.”
Although Sprat and Glanvill were both fellows and defenders of the Royal
Society, their views with respect to mechanism differed. In History of the Roy-
al-Society (1667), Sprat defended a strict version of the mechanical philosophy,
though without mentioning the word mechanism. The occasion for the following
passage was his desire to set the record straight about Christopher Wren’s accom-
plishments, which he believed had not been sufficiently appreciated:
Dr. Wren produc’d before the Society, an Instrument to represent the effects of
all sorts of Impulses, made between two hard globous Bodies, either of equal, or
of different bigness, and swiftness, following or meeting each other, or the one
moving, the other at rest. From these varieties arose many unexpected effects; of all
which he demonstrated the true Theories, after they had been confirm’d by many
hundreds of Experiments in that Instrument. These he propos’d as the Principles
of all Demonstrations in Natural Philosophy: Nor can it seem strange, that these
Elements should be of such Universal use; if we consider that Generation, Corrup-
tion, Alteration, and all the Vicissitudes of Nature, are nothing else but the effects
arising from the meeting of little Bodies, of differing Figures, Magnitudes, and
Velocities.43
Sprat attributes to Wren the role of founder of the true theory of the collision
of bodies based on “many hundreds of Experiments.” Although Descartes had
begun the project, his methodology and results were inadequate. Here I am
less concerned with the details of Sprat’s reconstruction—which appears highly
questionable—than with Stubbe’s response to his views.
Stubbe was involved in a polemic with the Royal Society, especially its apol-
ogists Sprat and Glanvill. Both Glanvill and Sprat defended the society and the
new experimental philosophy, while opposing the Peripatetic tradition. Stubbe’s
views are rather complex and have been the subject of extensive investigations; in
particular, he defended Aristotle, though there is probably more to his opinions
than meets the eye, leading some interpreters to argue that many of his positions
were purely tactical. Moreover, Stubbe was well acquainted with both More’s and
Hooke’s writings and tried to enlist More on his side. More had to write a letter
in a work of his follower Glanvill to distance himself from Stubbe.44
An especially important passage addressing some of the issues we have been
discussing can be found in A Reply unto the Letter Written to Mr. Henry Stubbe in
Defense of The History of the Royal Society (1671). Stubbe cites Sprat’s passage we
have seen above, emphasizing the words “nothing else”; unlike Sprat, he opposes
seeing nature as mere mechanism, and in this context provides a definition of our
term, the first I have encountered:
The very Word Mechanism imports thus much: it being an allusion to the con-
formation of Machines, wherein each part contributes to the effect according to
its Scituation, Size, and the Geometrical Proportion it bears to the other Parts,
of which the Machine is composed: And if the Machine do not produce its effect
entirely, by vertue of such a Geometrical frame, we do not say that the Phaenome-
non is Mechanical. Thus the Motion of a Water, or Clock, when it ariseth from its
Fabrick purely, then it is Mechanical: but when a Man doth winde it up, ’tis not a
Mechanical motion, except it do also appear that Man is also a Machine, and that
what he operates at that time, is purely Mechanical.45
Here Stubbe draws a line between phenomena involving some mechanical as-
pects from those that are entirely mechanical. He emphasizes the relation be-
tween the machine as a whole and its parts, which contribute to its effect. The
mechanism he has in mind would be a clock or a mill—the archetypal mecha-
nisms—operating exclusively by virtue of its structure, without any nonmechan-
ical contributions. Thus, water flow or the motion of the gear of a clock would be
mechanical, whereas a man winding the clock would not—what it would mean
for a man to operate mechanically in those circumstances he does not say in our
passage. Pace Bechtel, early modern mechanisms are closely tied to machines.
Anatomical Mechanisms
The occurrence of our term in the anatomical literature was not restricted to
microscopy. London physician Walter Charleton (1620–1707) was one of those
who employed the term mechanism in the context of detailed investigations, no-
tably of the heart. In Three Anatomical Lectures (1683), a treatise based on lectures
delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, Charleton gestures toward a mecha-

nistic explanation of the heart’s pulsation. The issue had been recently addressed
in Borelli’s posthumous De motu animalium (1680–1681), a work that had a con-
siderable impact across Europe and to which Charleton refers. Having praised
the Alexandrian anatomist Erasistratus for his reliance on mechanical principles,
Charleton proceeds to provide an account of the heart and its pulsation. After
describing the structure and actions of the heart’s component parts, Charleton
goes on to sound an optimistic note on his own achievement:
Thus have we run through all the proper actions and offices or uses of all the parts
of this incomparable Machine of the Heart, in their natural order; and found them
all to be plainly Mechanic, i.e. necessarily consequent from the structure, conforma-
tion, situation, disposition, and motions of the parts, by which they are respectively
performed.
If the Mechanism hath been by us rightly explicated (as I am perswaded it hath)
in the precedent discourse, no man has reason longer to believe, that the manner of
the motion of the heart is a thing to human wit wholly impervestigable.46
In later passages Charleton seeks to provide a more detailed account of the

mechanism of the heart’s pulsation based on its structure, comparing it to a hy-
draulic mint operating by the combination of smaller yet not microscopic com-
ponent parts: “As the Artificial Engine was composed of many less Machines,
each of which performed its proper office by a distinct operation; yet all con-
spired to one common end: So the Natural, being also complex, consisteth of var-
ious smaller Machines, viz. the Ears, Valves, Ventricles, Musculose flesh, Fibres
of different orders, Chords, Columns, Papillae, &c. all which have their peculiar
functions and motions; yet so combined, that they all co-operate to the Vital mo-
tion or heat of the bloud, and diffusion of the same.”47 Moreover, “the aptitude
of the Heart to Pulsation doth consist in its proper Fabric and conformation, in
its Conical Figure, in its cavities within, in the disposition and configuration of
its Fibres, in a word, in its whole Mechanism, which I have formerly described,
and which is far different from the Mechanism of any other Muscle whatsoever.”48
After having argued that the cause of the pulsation is a chemical process re-
sulting from the afflux, drop by drop, of a nervous juice,49 Charleton develops the
comparison between the heart’s fibers and the threads of a cord:
And as for the Probability of this proposition; that cannot be obscure to any man
of common sense, who shall consider, first, the near similitude that is between the
threds of a chord, and the Fibres of the heart, in Figure, in tenacity and strength,
in aptness to swell, and consequently to shorten themselves upon humectation, and
in the faculty of restoring themselves to their natural tone after extension: and then
the little or no difference betwixt water and the Succus Nervosus, as to the power
of insinuating into, and dilating the Pores of bodies naturally apt to swell and
shrink. For, since the two Agents, viz. water and the Succus Nervosus, are so alike
in their efficacy, as to the dilatation of the / Pores of Tensile bodies; and since the
two Patients also, viz. the threds of a chord, and the Fibres of the heart, have so full
a resemblance in their nature: it is highly probable, if not necessary, that like effects
should be produced by them. And this probability is the greater, because of all other
Efficient Causes hitherto excogitated by Learned men, to solve the grand Phaenom-
enon of the Pulsation of the Heart, none can be given, which is either so intelligible,
or so congruous to the whole Mechanism of the Heart, as this which I have in this
Lecture endeavour’d to assert.50
By “mechanism” Charleton means primarily a structure with its component

parts, leading to understanding its motion in what, echoing the recently pub-
lished work by Grew on plants, he calls an intelligible fashion.
London physician and comparative anatomist Edward Tyson (1651–1708)
used the term mechanism in his study of comparative anatomy, which provided
valuable opportunities to investigate unusual internal arrangements of the ani-
mal body. In Phocaena, or, The Anatomy of a Porpess (1680), for example, Tyson
advocates a new natural history of animals based not simply on what he calls su-
perficial descriptions of external appearances but on the anatomy of the internal
parts, which he compares to the internal gears of a watch. Tyson was a friend of
Hooke, who bought the porpoise for Tyson to study, drew the relevant images,
and encouraged him to publish his work:
I cannot see how a Natural History of Animals can be writ without Zootomy; at
best their [former Naturalists’] Accounts can be but superficial, and by them we
may know a Pig from a Dog, or that this is a Bull, a Bear or Monky; but still remain
ignorant of the curious Contrivance and Mechanisme of Nature within; just as if a
person should think he had sufficiently described a Watch, when he had only taken
notice of the Case, the Studs, the Glass, the figures and hand; by this he may know
it to be perhaps a Watch, but knows not how it so exactly measures time.51
As in several other instances, here Tyson pairs the terms “contrivance” and
“mechanism.” In the same work Tyson provides specific instances of anatomical
contrivances, arguing that the porpoise’s back resembles an inverted ship, for ex-
ample. The spine too has a peculiar structure: “The vertebrae are joyned together
by the intervention of a bony Cartilaginous body that consists of a double Lami-
na, containing, in a Cavity in the Middle, a gellied substance,” this being an “ex-
cellent contrivance for the flection of the body.”52 In a passage echoing the Dan-
ish anatomist Nicolaus Steno (1638–1686) and his own Ephemeri vita (1681),
Tyson also provides a methodological perspective: “Natures Synthetic Method in

the composure and structure of Animal Bodies, is best learn’t by this Analytic; by
taking to pieces this Automaton, and viewing asunder the several Parts, Wheels
and Springs that give it life and motion.”53 Here anatomy is compared to analysis
or the art of resolution into the constituent mechanical components.
In a later work, Carigueya, seu marsupiale Americanum, or, The Anatomy of an
Opossum (1698), for which he dissected a female specimen of the animal, Tyson
emphasizes other aspects. The anatomy of the opossum differs in many signifi-
cant respects from that of mammals, and Tyson duly analyzes many peculiar fea-
tures. In discussing the muscles and bones of the pouch, for example, he praises
their construction, ending with a reference to Plato’s claim that God applies ge-
ometry, this being a connection with the notion of mechanism already exploited
by Charleton. Here the emphasis seems to be on the spatial arrangement of parts
rather than formal mathematics:
The Antagonist to these Muscles is, the Sphincter Marsupii; an oval Series of strong,
fleshy Fibres, which serve to constringe and close the Orifice of the Pouch; which
it does so perfectly (as I have already observed), that one would think the Skin
here not to be slit; nor can the Orifice be observed till you have dilated it with your
Fingers.
Nature’s Contrivance therefore in placing this Pouch here, in this Hinder Part
of the Body, is very great; her Mechanisme in forming these Two Bones, the Janitores
Marsupii, which no Sceleton besides has, and so artfully furnishing them with these
Muscles, is most admirable; that with the Philosopher, there is none but must own
Θεòς γεωμετρεí [God geometrizes].54
Comparative anatomy offers endless opportunities to identify and discuss

differences among species. Going against a view of nature operating uniformly,
one Malpighi had forcefully defended in previous decades, Tyson’s investigations
led him to argue, on the contrary, that nature does not necessarily follow the
same rules but adopts a wide range of contrivances. In the opossum, for example,
the pylorus, connecting the stomach and the intestine, would seemingly let food
back into the stomach; this, however, does not happen because of the animal’s
frequent posture: “And what I hinted, how ’tis, that a Regurgitation of it into
the Stomach again, is prevented; especially upon the Posture ’tis frequently in,
when it hangs by its Tail, since (as I observed) the Passage at the Pylorus is so
open and patent. And for the doing this, we must expect Nature’s Contrivance
(which is always admirable) to be great; not confining her self still to the same
Rules; but is Infinite and All wise, in attaining the same Ends, with the greatest
Variety and Mechanism.”55 Although Tyson describes a mechanical arrangement
preventing food reflux, here and in the previous quotation his usage of the term
mechanism emphasizes nature’s ingenuity more than necessarily a mechanistic

way of operating.
Organism and Mechanism between London and Halle

Semantic shifts were both frequent and related to key terms; here I wish briefly
to investigate the interplay between the notions of mechanism and organism, one
that was emerging at the turn of the century and whose interpretative history
instantiates some claims I put forward in chapter one. Here it is therefore helpful
and indeed necessary to consider the notion of mechanism in its connections
with another key notion whose meaning was being defined.
In The Divine History of the Genesis of the World (1670), a sprawling work
of nearly five hundred pages published anonymously, the Puritan lawyer and
member of Parliament Samuel Gott (1614–1671) mentions both “mechanism”
and “organism.” By the former he meant mechanical organization, which could
also be at the microscopic level. In the following passage Gott appears dismissive
of those “Materialists” according to whom local motion and the minute internal
organization of a body or its texture would be responsible for its qualities: “And
now I shall return again to such Materialists, who though they cannot affirm,
that becaus a whole Body is Moved up or down, this way or that way, therefore it
ceaseth to be the same, yet can suppose, that if the parts in the Body be Moved
in such a maner, as neither they nor we can discern them, there being a new
Corporeal Texture, Schematism, and Mechanism therof, it shall therfore acquire
a new Individual Spirit and Spiritual Qualitys, by such Local Motion, as it doth
by Physical Generation and Corruption.”56
Gott was among the first to employ in the English language the term or-
ganism, which occurs a few times in the same work. This notion is harder to
interpret: it stems from the Greek organon, or instrument, which in the now
archaic adjectival form organical implies something endowed with organs like
a living body, while the suffix -ism marks the noun; the term is also related to
organization. Gott considers the role of what he calls elementary spirits, related
to the four elements; vegetative spirits, related to plants and the lower activities of
animals; and sensitive spirits, related to higher activities in animals. In this con-
text he states: “Nor are there only such several Spirits of Trees, Herbs, Grass, and
of every Species of them, which by a Proper Plastical Virtue Created in and with
them by God do severaly Effigiate their Proper Bodys, and the Organism therof,
but also Proper Subordinate Vegetative Spirits of Fishes, Fowls, and Beasts, and
of every Species of them, which doth so Effigiate their Proper Bodys, and the
Organism therof.”57 Here the verb “to effigiate” plays a key role in suggesting
how the vegetative spirits, both of plants and animals, appropriately fashion their
bodies and their organisms by means of a plastic virtue with which God has
endowed them. Later in the same work he gives the example of a glassmaker
who would effigiate glass to his wishes by blowing. By plastic virtue Gott means
an immaterial power associated with the vegetative soul. He also compares God
to a clockmaker: the latter relies on art and produces engines through artificial
and external principles; the former relies on nature to produce “more Curious
engines” through natural and internal means.58 The term organism thus involves
the organization of a living body.
Discussing the organs of sensation, including external ones such as eyes and
ears, and internal ones such as the brain and nerves, Gott once again ties the
notion of organism to the vegetative spirit. He states: “Also all the Organs, both
External, and Internal, do require the Vegetative Spirit, and Virtues therof, Plas-
ticaly to Form them, and Temper their Elementary Qualitys, and also to Actuate
and produce their Animal Spirits, as I have shewed: and this I conceiv to be
the very Organism of all the Organs of Sensation, and Instrumentalitys of the
Sensitive Spirit.”59 Here Gott argues that this is what he understands to be the
organism of the sensory organs, as a material interface of the sensitive spirit.
Gott seems to imply that, left to its own devices, unorganized matter would be
unsuited for a living body: its qualities would have to be tempered “plastically”
by the vegetative spirit to become an organism.
Nehemiah Grew too, in Cosmologia sacra (1701), uses the term organism, as
when he states: “What more wonderful, than to see the several Viscera obtain
their several kinds of Substance, as well as Organism.”60 And: “How admirable
also is the natural Structure or Organism of Bodies?” Thus “organism” is taken
as synonym to “natural Structure” and is mentioned alongside “substance.” Grew
does not cite Gott, though it is not impossible that he would have been familiar
with Divine History, whose contents are not unrelated to his own work.61
Grew argues that life is different from motion and a body cannot become vital
by being moved. However, he compares life to motion and comes to the conclu-
sion that in the same way as body is the subject of motion, so life must have as
its subject an incorporeal “Substantial Principle” or a vital substance. Grew also
claims that although a body cannot be made alive by its matter becoming subtler,
properly mixed, or differently organized, it has to have a proper organism suited
to its “species of life”: “Wherefore, the Organism of a body, although it hath
nothing to do, in the production of Life, as hath been shewed: Yet it is necessary,
that every Body, Should have its Organism, agreeable to the Species of Life, in
the Vital Principle, wherewith it is endowed. So as hereby to be fitted to receive
from, and transfer unto Life, all manner of proper Motions and Impressions.
Life and Motion, being, as is said, the Two Instruments of Commerce, between
the Vital and the Corporeal Worlds.”62 Grew’s views echo to some degree Gott’s
focus on the role of the organism at the interface between an immaterial vital
principle and the body’s structure and organization; motion and, more ambigu-
ously, life being like a currency employed to trade between the vital and corpo-
real worlds. In at least some cases some structures in plants and animals may be
called mechanisms, as we have seen for the coiled springlike membranes in coded
arsmart. Although by the turn of the century Grew had seemingly moved away
from the mechanical philosophy, in Cosmologia he uses the term mechanism with
an analogous meaning, this time with regard to the bulk and figure of muscle
and bone and the insertion of one into the other. Despite all its ambiguities, the
notion of organism suggests a discomfort in relying exclusively on the notion of
mechanism in characterizing structures of living bodies, and at the same time
the need for a notion specifically suited to them, even considering that natural
structures do not emerge by chance but are the product of divine creation.63
Moving linguistically from English to Latin, slightly forward in time, and
geographically from England to Halle—a key intellectual medical center to the
turn of the century—we find revealing semantic shifts in the works of rival phy-
sicians Georg Ernst Stahl (1659–1734) and Friedrich Hoffmann (1660–1742).64
The issue stems from the long-standing tension between man-made machines
and natural ones, such as the animal and especially the human body. Hoffmann
was prompted by the dislike some felt toward the “odiosum” and “invidiosum”
term “mechanismus,” so as to rouse the bile (“bilem commoveat”) in some, to
put matters this way:
Thus to us a mechanism is a certain effect, such as a motion or operation of a
body, dependent on a physical cause always and necessarily producing that effect;
therefore whichever effects occur mechanically, namely by a mechanism, are brought
about by necessary causes, namely acting or suited to acting for no other reason,
. . . ; when several material causes are coordinated and disposed in such a way that
effects arise from these that fit the idea of the craftsman who set himself a determi-
nate goal, it is still a mechanism, but more perfect, and, according to some, it is an
organism, since this mechanism happens to exist in organic bodies.65
Hoffmann considers mechanical processes rather broadly, including what he

calls physical processes generally, or even chemical ones; the specific example
he gives in the omitted portion is a piece of wood catching fire, the flame being
often used as an analog of life. In his opinion the notion of mechanism is closely
tied to that of regular cause—very much unlike Cudworth’s understanding of
mechanism as fortuitous. Hoffmann perceives a hierarchy of mechanisms based
on their perfection: simple artificial mechanisms, such as clocks, are made by us;
hugely—perhaps infinitely—more elaborate mechanisms in which several causes
interact with a purpose or goal as in living bodies, are due to the supreme arti-
ficer and are also called “organisms.” Thus, Hoffmann tries to establish a bridge
between artificial and natural mechanisms, or organisms; however, there seems

to be a major, perhaps unbridgeable, gap in complexity and perfection between
them, comparable to the difference in perfection between the artificers.
His colleague and rival Stahl had used the term organism already in his doc-
toral dissertation, De intestinis, eorumque morbis ac symptomatis, cognoscendis &
curandis (On Investigating and Curing the Intestines, Their Diseases and Symptoms;
1684, repr. 1704), though the issue came to the fore more prominently early
in the new century in Disquisitio de mechanismi et organismi diversitate (1706,
repr. 1708), in which he drives a wedge between mechanisms and organisms.
Stahl understood a mechanism as being subordinated to the immaterial soul,
which would be an agent internal or intrinsic to the animal machine. Thus, a
mechanism would be qualitatively different from an organism: the latter would
provide a functional purposeful integration—one could say an orchestration—
among a series of operations, in such a way that the final purpose is intrinsic to
it; the former would involve a mere coordination of operations, such that any
final purpose—as telling the exact time for a clock—is extrinsic to it and im-
posed by the artificer. For Stahl the purposeful operations of the soul could not
be replaced by complexity, even an infinite one. Together with the Montpellier
botanist and nosologist François Boissier de Sauvages, Stahl was one of the lead-
ing figures of the “animistes,” according to whom the soul played a key role in
animal physiology.66
Both Hoffmann and Stahl entered in correspondence with Leibniz, who sid-
ed with the former. In the subsequent extensive exchanges Stahl provided an
especially clear version of his own views: “This implication shows up first of all
in the present sterile fight about mechanism, since the distinction between mech-
anism or machine, and organism or instrument, though obvious and evident, is
not appropriately understood. . . . It is manifest that every physical organ is a
machine, but it is equally clear that not every machine (indeed, strictly speaking,
none) is forthwith an organ or instrument.”67 Thus, although the physical body
and all its organs are machines and indeed mechanisms, it would be reductive
and inaccurate to see them simply as such, because one would miss the teleolog-
ical dimension central to organisms.
A Brief Coda: Mechanism in Mid-Eighteenth-Century France

Usage of our term spread far and wide during the eighteenth century. France is
an especially interesting case because of the emergence at Montpellier of new
medical and philosophical perspectives challenging traditional mechanistic
views, and because of the publication in the third quarter of the century of the
epoch-making Encyclopédie, by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert.
After reviewing a passage tying mechanism to the Cartesians, I discuss more
ambiguous references in an influential text by the Montpellier school on glands,

echoing some of our previous discussions, and lastly select some crucial passages
from the Encyclopédie.
An unambiguous meaning to our term was assigned in the obituary of
Cartesian natural philosopher and mathematician Joseph Privat de Molières
(1677–1742), in which his friend Jean-Jacques d’Ortous de Mairan argued that
according to some, physics was “réduit au vil méchanisme des artisans,” stating:
“Mechanism, as immediate cause of all the phenomena of nature, has become in
these latter times the distinctive sign of Cartesians.”68
By contrast, in his often-cited work on glands, Recherches anatomiques sur la po-
sition des glandes (1751), Montpellier physician Théophile de Bordeu (1722–1776)
is much more flexible in the usage of our term, which occurs dozens of times.
Bordeu routinely talks of the “mechanisme des excrétions” and “des secretions”
of glands, but since he is unsure about their mode of operation, the term does not
carry the same philosophical implications as in d’Ortous de Mairan’s obituary.
Bordeu seeks an equidistant position between the eminent Leiden mechanist
Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738) and Stahl, the Halle animist.69 While Malpighi
too was unsure about the precise mechanism of glands, he did not doubt their
mechanical nature. While Bordeu’s views echo those of Steno, who believed that
nerves regulated the flow of saliva in the parotid gland by opening and closing
vessels, his position was more ambiguous: Bordeu argued that glands adjust and
react to changing circumstances through their rich supply of nerves, compared
secretion to sexual erection, claiming that glands are not merely passive devices
but operate like suction cups (“venteuse”).70 In an important footnote, Bordeu
talks of an ever-acting conservative force responsible for the operations of the
body and admits that he is having recourse to metaphors and comparison in
addressing complex issues—almost as a form of suspension of judgment.71 In
a particularly intriguing passage, Bordeu compares glands to organs of sense,
including the eye, because they all adjust to the external circumstances—the eye
through the pupil, which is more or less open depending on the amount of light.
Boyle had claimed that since adjustments of the pupil occur without the action
of the rational soul, the body works like a mechanism. By contrast, by pointing
to nervous action, Bordeu stresses the body’s activity—a feature emphasized by
the additional surprising comparison between glands and Abraham Trembley’s
recently discovered freshwater polyps, which according to Bordeu seek nutrition
much like glands seek their appropriate fluids. Through his emphasis on nerves,
Bordeu saw glands almost like independent creatures.72
Bordeu contributed an entry for Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie on
“crise,” although the Montpellier school was far more prolific. The Encyclopédie
includes an exceedingly short entry for “méchanisme,” stating that our term is
used “of the manner in which some mechanical causes produce their effect; thus
one says the mechanism of a clock, or the mechanism of the human body,” an in-
triguing juxtaposition that may have benefited from some qualifications. The dis-
ciplinary domain is indicated as “Physique.” 73 The term, however, occurs over five
hundred times in the multivolume endeavor, suggesting that its entry is consid-
erably undertheorized. By contrast, the term “organisme” does not have an entry
and occurs only sporadically in the text, mostly juxtaposed to “méchanisme.”74
The Encyclopédie, whose full title proclaims it to be a “systematic dictionary
of the sciences, arts and crafts” (Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des
métiers), provides extraordinarily rich documentation of the technology of its
time. In this context the term “mechanism” occurs repeatedly in conjunction
with a wide range of devices, from “balance” and “balancier” to the extensive
technological equipment documented in the tables. Many occurrences of our
term occur in the context of discussions of the soul, anatomy, and medicine: the
entry “âme des bêtes” by the Abbé Claude Yvon (1714–1791), has twenty-two oc-
currences; the anonymously contributed entry “Inflammation, Maladies inflam-
matoires” refers to a “mechanisme aveugle,” or blind mechanism, stressing the
lack of a purpose.75 In his entry “Faculté vitale,” Jean Bouillet (1690–1777) pres-
ents current philosophical stances about life with great clarity: “méchanisme,”
which he considered unsatisfactory; the belief in some vital faculty dependent on
a mechanism different from known current ones, which he viewed as a fanciful
position that should be reduced to “pur méchanisme”; and the belief in the role
of the soul, which he endorsed—a rare position in the Encyclopédie.76
Mine is a partial and limited study, yet I hope it may be useful in highlighting
some of the ways the term mechanism was used from mid-seventeenth century
England, documenting the existence of a range of meanings and implications
attached to it, and contributing to reconstructing the horizon of researches and
debates and the growing role of mechanistic explanations at the time. In partic-
ular, Henry Stubbe’s definition provides strong evidence of the contemporary
association between mechanisms and mechanical devices.
Following More’s Immortality of the Soul, mechanisms were understood as
material entities; they involved what the protagonists and their audiences saw as
mechanical devices, whether artificial or natural, because God or nature worked
mechanically—though with greater perfection than humans. We have analyzed
the interplay between artificial devices and nature, with devices such as pendu-
lums and springs helping us understand nature, and, reciprocally, nature occa-
sionally inspiring new hybrid devices, such as Hooke’s hygroscope, in which he
attached a needle with a graduated scale to a beard of oats. While the majority
of the occurrences of our term imply a teleological dimension, occasionally the

focus was also on curious structures seemingly devoid of a clear purpose, such
as snowflakes or Kettering stone. We have encountered a range of stances with
theological and natural-philosophical implications; divines, such as Henry More
and Joseph Glanvill among others, used the term as frequently as experimental
philosophers in the context of general discussions on mechanistic explanations,
often accompanied by the qualification “mere” or “pure.” In this regard our term
characterized the types of accounts offered and their range or coverage, rather
than specific explanations, documenting an anxiety about the mechanical phi-
losophy and the role of the soul and other immaterial entities in bodily processes.
The term mechanism was also used in detailed studies, whether at the micro-
scopic or visible levels. The term was relatively new—major Continental anato-
mists, such as Malpighi, for example, never used it; therefore, I am wary of draw-
ing conclusions from its absence, though its occurrence in the second half of the
century calls for some reflections. Hooke emerges as a key figure whose extensive
reliance on the term in his microscopic investigations provides a rich and re-
warding area of study; his work is especially valuable for the wealth of detailed
accounts of specific mechanisms he provided, giving us an unparalleled sense of
the research horizon of the period and its limitations. Anatomists like Nehemi-
ah Grew, Edward Tyson (both significantly closely associated with Hooke), and
Walter Charleton used our term to characterize specific macroscopic structures
in human and animal bodies.
It seems no accident that our term emerged in the aftermath of and in re-
sponse to the works of Descartes; in mid-eighteenth-century France it was ex-
plicitly tied to Cartesians. Its increasing frequency documents the need for a
concept capturing the growing emphasis on mechanistic explanations and the
anxiety they generated. Similarly, the examples we have seen of the evolving
tension between the notions of organism and mechanism highlight the growing
need both for a term specifically devoted to describing structures of living bodies,
whether plants or animals, and for a study seeking to reconstruct its exact mean-
ing and usage over time.
By focusing on the occurrences I have identified, I hope to alert historians to
the significance of the term and its cognates. I also hope my study can serve as
a model for further investigations involving different languages over a broader
geographical area and a longer timeframe, including the professional affiliation
of those who used it. If anyone reading a historical text will pause to reflect on
the usage and meaning of our term, one of the aims of my study will have been
fulfilled.
Chapter 4
Mechanisms as
Investigative Projects
Mechanistic explanations in anatomy were in a state of flux in the seventeenth
century, especially the second half, for a number of reasons. New investigations
were revealing a novel picture of the body; the range of mechanical devices avail-
able was growing and the toolkit of mechanistic explanations was expanding
accordingly, relying on new devices such as pendulums and springs, and notions
such as elasticity and semipermeability; moreover, the microscope was opening
new vistas onto previously unknown microstructures, aided by novel and prob-
lematic techniques such as staining and injections.1 In this rapidly changing field
mechanistic anatomists faced an uphill struggle in many areas, from the opera-
tions of individual organs, such as the lungs, the kidneys, the liver, or even the
brain, to understanding sense perception. The problem of generation, however,
stands out as one of the most challenging: how could one account for the forma-
tion of animals from their parents, a process occurring routinely and mysterious-
ly in animals large and small?
Marcello Malpighi, possibly the most productive and influential anatomist of
the second half of the century, devoted two short but fundamental treatises and a
few sections from larger works to generation. Several historians have investigated
those works, highlighting his pioneering and remarkable usage of the microscope.
My focus here is to investigate his mechanistic agenda in an area in which such
explanations seemed exceedingly hard to attain; namely, the act of fecundation
and its immediate aftermath, the onset of generation. It may seem peculiar and
perhaps ungenerous to focus on Malpighi’s speculations on an area he admitted
was beyond the capabilities of his microscopy, given his strong emphasis on de-
tailed empirical investigations. Besides the fact that his larger work on generation
has been extensively investigated by others, however, one could argue that precise-
ly because visual evidence was so limited, Malpighi delved into speculations shed-
ding light on his views and agenda—though admittedly they are not especially
representative of his extensive work on generation and anatomy more broadly.2
109
110 Mechanisms as Investigative Projects
I start by reviewing Malpighi’s early works in relation to Harvey’s views; I

then examine Malpighi’s and Borelli’s later attempts to interpret fecundation
mechanistically, despite their use of the notion of “plastic power.” The third sec-
tion goes back to the earlier works by Hooke and Boyle, who provide valuable
linguistic and conceptual tools to reexamine the relevant questions. Boyle split
the problem in two components, dealing with the agent and its mode of opera-
tion, giving to the latter an unquestionably mechanistic answer. The last section
returns to Malpighi’s work on generation from the vantage point of his Opera
posthuma (1697), which offers a wealth of reflections ranging from a possible
mechanistic account in the form of chemical processes to a creative borrowing
from Boyle’s strategy. Malpighi’s study of generation highlights the tensions
between mechanism seen as a finished product and as an investigative project,
providing a concrete and focused case study of the problems associated with
mechanistic explanations in the second half of the seventeenth century.
Harvey, Malpighi, and the Formation of the Chick in the Egg

Harvey and Malpighi are the main seventeenth-century anatomists who sought
to unravel the issue of generation through detailed and extensive empirical inves-
tigations. My brief excursus does not pretend to do justice to the richness of their
works but seeks to highlight some key differences in their perspectives.
Briefly put, for Harvey fecundation resulted from an immaterial process
analogous to contagion in pestilential disease, to a magnet, or to a mental con-
ception in the brain. He also argued that an immaterial plastic power or faculty
guides the formation process from a homogeneous or “similar” undifferentiated
body, so that “all and every the parts of a Chicken, whether they be Bones,
Clawes, Feathers, Flesh, or what ever else, are procreated and fed.”3 In his main
work, Exercitationes de generatione animalium (Exercitations on the Generation of
Animals; 1651), Harvey argues that all the parts of the animals are fashioned by
a “primigenial moisture” and in the following passage he clarifies his thoughts:
I can scarce refrain my pen from rebuking those that follow Empedocles and
Hippocrates also: (who will needs have all similar bodies to be generated by the
congregation of the four contrary Elements: (as being mixt bodies) and dissolved or
corrupted by their segregation) nor is Democritus and the Epicureans, who follow
him, less blameable, who constitute all things out of the confluence of Atomes of
different Figures. For it was their errour of old, and is a popular errour at this day,
that all similar bodies are framed out of heterogeneous or different bodies. For ac-
cording to this opinion, had a man Linceus his eyes he could not discerne any thing
that were similar, one in number, identity, and continuity: but there were nothing
but an appearing union, and an assembly or heap made up of a congregation and
Mechanisms as Investigative Projects 111
certaine colligation of indivisible bodies: so that generation were nothing else but an
aggregation, and convenient positure of several parts.4
Here Harvey connects Empedocles, the proponent of the four elements, with
Hippocrates and the atomists Democritus, Epicurus, and their followers, claim-
ing that they would all deny true homogeneous or similar bodies. His reference
to Lynceus, the mythological figure who would be unable to discern anything
truly homogeneous despite being endowed with an exceptional sight, echoes a
similar passage in Aristotle, De generatione et corruptione, though in the seven-
teenth century the issue had a new dimension related to the impetuous rise of
corpuscular and atomistic views and of microscopy. Harvey’s subsequent claim,
from a passage closely following the one just cited, discusses how the first stages
of generation occur:
Nor (so far as I could ever yet perceive, or by any meanes observe) are there any
similar parts which are first constituted in their several order, or existence at the
same time together (as membranes, / flesh, fibres, gristles, bones, &c.) that so from
them conioined together (as out of the Elements or first rudiments of Animals) the
organs or parts, and the whole entire animal should at last be framed; but as we
said before, the first rudiment of the body is onely a similar soft gluten, or stiff, sub-
stance, not unlike a spermatical concernment, or coagulated seed: out of which (the
decree of Generation going on) being changed, cut in sunder, or distributed into
several parcels, as by the divine Mandat as we have said, (let here be a Bone, there a
Nerve, or a Muscle, here the Bowels, the receptacles of the Excrements, &c.) out of
an inorganical substance, was made an organical: out of one, and that one being of
the same nature, were many things made, and those also diverse, and contrary: not
by a kind of transposition, or local motion (as if by the virtue of the heat, there did
arise a congregation of homogeneous, and a disgregation of heterogeneous bodies)
but rather by a disgregation of homogeneous parts, or bodies, then any composition
of heterogeneous.5
That “disgregation” of homogeneous parts would be the first step in the process
of epigenesis, or the successive formation of the animal, not by local motion, but
by the progressive differentiation and formation of new structures.
The process Harvey envisaged was explicitly neither corpuscular nor mechan-
ical. His views stood at the opposite end from Malpighi’s opinions, according to
which the chick is not formed through epigenesis but emerges before incubation
and immediately after fertilization or fecundation—probably because Malpighi
studied eggs fecundated in August, in the hot Italian summers, leading to swift
incubation. On the example of the Venice physician Giuseppe degli Aromatari
(1587–1660), who was also a friend of Harvey’s, Malpighi saw a parallel between
the formation of the chick in the egg and that of plants: he argued that the seed
and the chick develop in similar fashion and are preformed or appear before incu-
bation. This is what he meant when he talked of “preformation,” a term that sub-
sequently assumed a different meaning. Therefore his position differed from that
of his contemporaries, such as Nicolas Malebranche and Jan Swammerdam, for
example, according to whom all successive generations were created by God ab
initio and growth, as opposed to generation, was the only process truly occurring.
Growth seemed more amenable to mechanistic understanding than the seem-
ingly untreatable formation of a new animal. For Malpighi, fecundation and the
first formation of the chick appeared crucial and problematic at the same time: it
was the time when the new animal was formed, but it was shrouded in mystery
regarding its details, which seemed unfathomable even with the microscope.6
Despite these difficulties, Malpighi’s mechanistic inclination is not in doubt
from the often-cited opening sentence of his first essay on the topic, De forma-
tione pulli in ovo (On the Formation of the Chick in the Egg), dating from 1672
and published by the Royal Society in the following year (1673): “In building
machines artisans are used to fashion the individual parts preliminarily, so that
those that must be later assembled could be first viewed separately. Several nat-
uralists [Mystae Naturae] interested in the study of animals have hoped that this
would also happen in works of Nature; for since it is extremely difficult to dis-
entangle the complex structure of the body, it was thought helpful to inspect
the production of the individual parts in their earliest stages, still separate.” 7
Alas, continues Malpighi, the animal makes its first appearance when it is al-
ready formed, frustrating the expectations of the naturalists, here characterized
as “Mystae Naturae,” literally “Nature’s priests.” Malpighi’s statement was likely
self-referential, in that he was one of those “Mystae Naturae” hoping to detect the
building blocks, like some gears to be assembled as if animals were machines, but
whose plan was thwarted. We see here Malpighi seeking to merge his empirical
investigations with a mechanistic framework: he compared Nature to an artisan
building machines or assembling them after having fashioned their components.
Commenting on this passage, Raphaële Andrault has recently argued: “A physi-
cian known for his use of the machine analogy tries at the same time to empha-
size the gap between organic bodies and artificial machines, when his research
revolves around the very first formation of living beings.”8 In my opinion Mal-
pighi recognized that nature fashions the body in a way different from the one
he had hypothesized, but, ultimately, he believed that the process and outcome
were no less mechanical; there was no unbridgeable gap between organic bodies
and suitable machines.
In fact, in a later passage, seemingly developing the opening one, Malpighi
puts forward a related conjecture. But here there is a significant difference from
the machinelike formation process he had naïvely envisioned in the opening sen-
tence; now he outlines a more elaborate process: “For we may surmise that the
chick, together with the contiguous small sacs of almost all its parts, lies hidden
in the egg, floating in the colliquament, and that its nature results from the in-
tegration of mingled nutritive and fermentative juices, through whose kindled
joint action blood is produced in successive steps and the parts previously de-
lineated erupt and swell out.”9 At this point Malpighi has to admit that Naturae
opificia, or the workshops of nature, are so intricate and hidden that his account
is highly conjectural; therefore, it may be fruitless to pursue it in greater detail.
Hence, he returns to the descriptive account of the successive stages of formation
of the chick, which he could visually investigate and which occupy the rest of
his essay.
Conjectural and speculative as his account is, it is also revealing of the frame-
work within which he operated and of his philosophical stance. Further, it echoes
in interesting ways his opening passage quoted above. In both instances Mal-
pighi conceives the formation process as resulting from an assemblage of parts.
In the opening passage he does not identify a hierarchy in those parts, whereas in
the passage immediately preceding the later quotation one of them, the carina,
is given a privileged status in forming the framework and indeed the keel of the
chick—carina being the Latin word for keel. According to Malpighi, the carina,
or the rudiments of the vertebral column, would correspond to the trunk and
leaves of the plant. Although the carina is not the chick but rather its key struc-
tural component, it is clear that it has a privileged role and that the various parts
to be assembled are not all equivalent. Moreover, the opening passage suggests
a mechanical assemblage of parts already made, almost as a clock assembled by
a clockmaker. By contrast, in the second quotation the context is more chemi-
cal, as evidenced by the reference to mixing and fermentation of nutritive juices
enclosed in small sacs of the egg; chemistry enabled a more fluid—literally and
metaphorically—formation process in which the parts are not assembled already
made but are mutually shaped in the interactive process. As we have seen in
chapter one, the notion of fermentation was often employed to bridge the gap
between the mechanistic program and the explanation of specific phenomena.
In his treatise on the kidneys, Malpighi had stated that nature’s industry is so
fecund that we will find machines not only presently unknown but also unimag-
inable or beyond his current understanding. Here he outlines a barely imaginable
chemical process whose components shape each other without a soul and its fac-
ulties, which were part of traditional nonmechanistic interpretations in anatomy:
we could call it a self-forming machine.10
Malpighi would have understood these processes as mechanistic in a broad
sense, since for him chemistry consisted in the composition and separation of
particles of matter based on their size, shape, and motion, which is excited by fire.
As he explains it in his posthumous Risposta:
The Chymists in their operations have method and a variety of instruments, which
consist in the figure, in the openings and in the applications of fire or another exci-
tant to motion, and these are known to a good chymist. According to them Nature
is chymical: our body is a workshop of chymical containers, and since Nature, when
it is not well regulated in its motions and positions, has to be corrected by the prac-
tical physician; the physician, like the Chymist, must have knowledge of the figure,
quality, adaptation of the moving parts of our body; and this with a method that is
the same as the anatomy, physiology, and therapeutics of Rational physicians.11
De formatione pulli in ovo is accompanied by an extensive collection of plates

based on Malpighi’s own drawings. Here Malpighi was following in the tradition
of Hieronymus Fabricius, who believed in the importance of images and relied
extensively on them, rather than Harvey, who eschewed them as misleading.12
Both Fabricius and Malpighi provide a detailed visual account of the formation
process on a daily and indeed at times even hourly basis. Despite Malpighi’s
mechanistic agenda, it is difficult, to say the least, to detect a mechanistic narra-
tive in the images. However, there are some elements that capture crucial features
of his approach. His first figure, for example, showing cicatricula A life size on
the left and enlarged under the microscope on the right, highlights a white speck
belonging neither to the albumen nor to the yolk, which according to Harvey
was the site of the soul and the point of origin of the chick (fig. 4.1). The enlarged
figure also shows what Malpighi took to be the preformed “fetus” L enclosed in
the small sac or “saccule” B—later known as the nucleus of Pander; hence from
that stage on, there would be mainly growth of parts already formed or at least
sketched out rather than the actual formation of new ones. Another revealing
feature, to which we shall return below, is the series of concentric circles sur-
rounding the central small sac. Malpighi interpreted them as fluid and more
solid substances in alternation, starting from a liquid C resembling molten glass
in which the small sac B floats, and followed by the lighter one D, more solid, as
a dam. Malpighi added the figure of the same part in subventaneous or unfertil-
ized eggs, highlighting major structural differences: both the small sac B and the
concentric circles are conspicuously missing and what we have instead is a seem-
ingly random patchwork of darker structures on a light background (fig. 4.2).
This suggests that the process of fecundation results in the organization in con-
centric circles of matter of the egg, whence the chick is subsequently formed.13
In 1673 Malpighi published an appendix to his first essay on incubated eggs;
the new observations, however, do not alter in a substantive way the picture of
the process of fecundation emerging from his previous work.
Fig. 4.1. Cicatricula in fertilized egg. Malpighi, De formatione (1673), in Opera omnia,
plate I. Courtesy of the Lilly Library.
Fig. 4.2. Subventaneous egg. Malpighi, De formatione (1673), in Opera omnia, plate III.
Borelli and Malpighi on Fecundation

Things changed, however, in the early 1680s. On November 1, 1681, Malpighi
sent a letter partly dealing with relevant matters to the Lyon physician and an-
tiquarian Jacob Spon, later published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1684;
a copy was also sent to Robert Boyle, as Ashley Inglehart has recently shown.
Almost immediately thereafter appeared in Rome the second volume of De motu
animalium (On the Motion of Animals), by Malpighi’s erstwhile mentor Borel-
li—the address to the reader by Carlo Giovanni Pirroni, general of Scuole Pie,
is dated December 22, 1681, almost exactly two years after Borelli’s death on
the last day of 1679. Thus, the two works appeared in close succession and inde-
pendently of each other.14
In the letter to Spon Malpighi discusses many topics, including the problem
of generation, which he treats more extensively and in a wider range of animals,
including higher ones; further, the terminology he employs changes considerably
with the introduction of a philosophically loaded term that is absent in earlier
texts. In an early section of the letter to Spon, Malpighi discusses a “monstrous”
kidney found in the cadaver of Antonio Francesco Davia. The opening sentence
of the next section, on the uterus, states: “Dismissing the errors of a languishing
Nature we examine the workshop of the plastic virtue.”15 The term “plastic” oc-
curs on two further occasions examining the process of fecundation. In the first,
Malpighi investigates butterflies, arguing that the semen and various fluids pro-
duced by structures contiguous to the vagina are received and protected, so that
the eggs passing through are moistened and fecundated: “Thus that plastic force
is preserved for several days and is communicated to the eggs emerging in the
subsequent days.”16 Malpighi argues that in poultry the process of fecundation
is more far-reaching: “In poultry Nature does not scatter and sprinkle the cock’s
semen, or another menstruum fecundated by the semen, only on the cicatrix, in
which the rudiments of the parts lie concealed, but moistens with plastic force
the entire egg, namely the aliment in the form of albumen and yolk, so that the
whole is fecundated.”17
Despite his remarkable technical and historical competence, the translations
and commentaries provided by the embryologist and historian Howard B. Adel-
mann are occasionally questionable. For example, in discussing the process of
fecundation in a passage from the letter to Spon immediately preceding the one
cited above, Malpighi had argued that while the penetration of the bulkier parts
(“corpulentia”) of semen may be blocked, the more spirituous and volatile ones
are not; those particles (“volatiles particulas”) are responsible for fecundation,
which he presents as a process of fermentation leading to the transmission of
motion. Here Malpighi clarifies the role of semen, which is to provide activity
and motion through its most volatile particles, in a broadly mechanistic fashion:
rather than contributing actual matter, semen merely provides the motion and
activity for this organization. Still, Adelmann’s claim that Malpighi’s “postula-
tion of an immaterial, fecundating element in the semen makes him the heir of
Fabricius, Harvey, and de Graaf” (my emphasis) appears misleading: in no way
could Malpighi’s fecundating element, his “volatile particles” inducing motion,
be construed as being “immaterial” and his views be associated with those of
Fabricius and Harvey in this regard. Fabricius had argued that fertilization was a
noncorporeal effect of the formative faculty of sperm on the uterus, while Harvey
advocated a generative faculty of the soul. Both views were alien and indeed an-
tithetical to Malpighi’s mechanistic thinking. Adelmann’s views on Regnier de
Graaf too seem questionable, in that the Delft anatomist’s reliance on a seminal
vapor as the fecundating agent also implies a material agent.18
Similarly, I believe that Adelmann’s statement that Malpighi’s understanding
of the expression “plastic virtue” or “spirit” would be “essentially a combination
of the formal and efficient causes of Aristotle and the plastic or formative faculty
of Galen” is misleading, because Aristotle and Galen relied on immaterial prin-
ciples and faculties, whereas Malpighi, in line with some of his contemporaries,
reinterpreted the meaning of “plastic” mechanistically, and characterized the for-
mative process in a chemical and therefore for him mechanistic way.19 Malpighi
does not provide a definition of what he means by “plastic,” nor does he outline
its mode of operation in any detail; therefore we have to interpret his references
contextually, relying on other works by him and his contemporaries. From the
previous discussion we have already glimpsed that he attributed a major role to
the size of particles, tiny volatile ones acting quite differently from the bulkier
ones.
Turning to his former mentor, we find revealing information. In De motu an-
imalium Borelli includes chapters on the generation of both plants and animals.
It is here that he provides a mechanistic account of plastic powers. In proposition
180, significantly titled “The composition of the nutritive juice of plants must
be provided by the sieve-like structure of their vessels,” he refers to an “oculata,
& industriosa virtute plastica,” a far-sighted and assiduous plastic virtue, which
would arrange the particles of water suitably. In the immediately following pas-
sage Borelli explains: “All these things without doubt must occur immediately,
not by a certain prudent and intelligent attending agent, but by a natural and
mechanical necessity disposed by the Divine Architect.”20 His ensuing account
provides a vintage mechanistic explanation depending on the size and shape of
vessels and fluid particles. While denying any role to an intelligent agent intrinsic
to the organism, Borelli attributes the process to a mechanical necessity—one
could say laws—disposed by God.
In the chapter on animal generation Borelli elaborates his analysis further.

Following Harvey, Borelli accepts that semen is not found in the womb after co-
ition, though he explicitly rejects as absurd Harvey’s conclusion that fecundation
occurs through some immaterial property. Borelli further argues that semen is
not homogeneous but has a complex structure and organization.21 In proposition
186 Borelli outlines a tentative specific mechanism or “mechanicum artificium”
to explain how fertilization occurs.22 Rather than seeking empirically a suitable
account, Borelli typically offers a range of analogies: here, for example, he com-
pares the egg’s fertilization by semen to the action of a ferment, a clock set in
motion, dry hay moistened by water, and a magnet activating the components of
a mass of iron. The magnet and its operations were sufficiently ambiguous that
they were invoked by investigators with different philosophical perspectives, as
we have seen for Galen in chapter one: we have seen above that Harvey, too, com-
pared the role of semen in conception to a contagion or to a magnet, though he
interpreted the process quite differently than did Borelli. Borelli identified three
aspects in a clock: the conformation and arrangement of the wheels; the added
motive force, such as an attached weight, wind, or water; and lastly the actual
operation of the automaton. He argues that even a fully formed pendulum must
be set in motion; this last action is provided by warmth, which would activate
particles of air present in the animal machine by setting them in a motion of
compression and rebounding.23
While Borelli is more explicit than Malpighi in establishing analogies, and
perhaps not surprisingly shows a stronger preference for mechanical devices such
as a pendulum, their overall approach is similar with regard to the role of the egg
and semen and of plastic power: following Harvey, they both claim that semen
contributes to the fecundation process by providing motion and vivification:
there is no mixing of the respective components, the matter comes exclusively
from the egg and is merely activated by semen. Both employ the expression “plas-
tic power” in a form wholly different from Harvey’s use and the classical heritage,
interpreting it in a typical mechanistic fashion. Malpighi, however, seeks to pro-
vide an account starting from observations, problematic and insufficient as they
were, whereas Borelli was content with offering ingenious and plausible accounts
as yet unsupported by direct empirical evidence.
Hooke and Boyle on Emergent Structures

Borelli and Malpighi were not the first to use the expression “plastic power” and
cognate ones with a nontraditional meaning and especially to gesture toward ex-
planations of fecundation eschewing the soul and its faculties: about fifteen years
earlier Hooke and arguably Boyle had made a similar move. However, while
Hooke’s work, Micrographia, was in English and had a limited impact in Italy,
Fig. 4.3. Frozen urine. Hooke, Micrographia (1665), schema VIII. Courtesy of the
Lilly Library.
Boyle’s books were soon translated into Latin. We shall now briefly examine
their crucial works, as Boyle’s was the likely source of Borelli’s and Malpighi’s
terminological shift.
As we have seen in chapter one, in a celebrated passage from the preface to
Micrographia Hooke states that the microscope would reveal that qualities be-
lieved to be occult and plastic faculties could be understood as “small Machines
of Nature.” However, he also emphasizes our ignorance about even the simplest
operations of nature.24 In later passages Hooke attributes an especially intriguing
role to cold: while it was well known that heat was required for the incubation
of the chick in the egg, for example, he found that cold, too, could produce re-
markable and surprisingly regular patterns. Hooke argued that all bodies have
vibrating components, whose motion is proportional to their degree of heat.25
Ultimately, he was seeking a mechanistic account of the origin of organized non-
living structures as a bridge toward more complex, even living, ones: “Knowing
what is the form of Inanimate or Mineral bodies, we shall be the better able to
proceed in our next Enquiry after the forms of Vegetative / bodies; and last of
all, of Animate ones, that seeming to be the highest step of natural knowledge
that the mind of man is capable of.”26 While experimenting on frozen urine
and discussing its appearance, for example, Hooke drew a comparison with the
branching of ferns (notice especially the top portion in fig. 4.3):
But there is a Vegetable which does exceedingly imitate these branches, and that is,
Fearn, where the main stem may be observ’d to shoot out branches, and the stems
of each of these lateral branches, to send forth collateral, and those subcollateral,
and those latero subcollateral, &c. and all those much after the same order with the
branchings, divisions, and subdivisions in the branchings of these Figures in frozen
Vrine; so that if the Figures of both be well consider’d, one would ghess that there
were not much greater need of a seminal principle for the production of Fearn, then
for the production of the branches of Vrine, or the Stella martis, there seeming to be
as much form and beauty in the one as in the other.27
Here Hooke suggests that elaborate organization in nature, notably “form and
beauty,” could occur without a seminal principle, which would obviously be
lacking in frozen urine or “stella martis,” a chymical compound with a starlike
structure that had attracted Boyle’s early interest. This passage is especially in-
teresting for the specific examples it offers of unusually elaborate organization in
nonliving structures. Soon thereafter, Hooke discusses the figure of snowflakes:
Observing some of these figur’d flakes with a Microscope, I found them not to
appear so curious and exactly figur’d as one would have imagin’d, but like Artificial
Figures, the bigger they were magnify’d, the more irregularites appear’d in them;
but this irregularity seem’d ascribable to the thawing and breaking of the flake by
the fall, and not at all to the defect of the plastick virtue of Nature, whose curiosity
in the formation of most of these kind of regular Figures, such as those of Salt,
Minerals, &c. / appears by the help of the Microscope, to be very many degrees
smaller then the most acute eye is able to perceive without it.28
In these passages Hooke is using the expressions “seminal principle” and “plastic
virtue,” discarding the traditional philosophical baggage attached to them, seek-
ing to explain nonliving structures—perhaps implicitly suggesting that nature
may have a self-organizing power also for living bodies without souls or sub-
stantial forms. He tentatively suggests a comparison with the structure of some
regular solid bodies and crystals, which he believed were formed by stacking
elementary globular units together. His plate (fig. 4.4) shows alum crystals and
corresponding geometric figures produced by stacking together three, four, or
more component globules, forming different shapes depending on their arrange-
ment; the last one at bottom right (L) shows the cubic arrangement of sea or rock
salt. Hooke states that he experimented by rolling bullets down an incline and
observing their resulting arrangements, which exhibit regular shapes despite the
seemingly random process.29
In the same year of Micrographia’s publication Boyle published New Exper-
iments and Observations Touching Cold (1665), in which he argues that cold de-
Fig. 4.4. Alum crystals. Hooke, Micrographia (1665), scheme VIII. Courtesy of the
Lilly Library.
pends on the slower motion of a body’s constituent corpuscles. Following a Ba-

conian approach of systematic experimentation, Boyle challenges both Aristotle,
according to whom cold was a quality associated with a corresponding element,
such as water, and Pierre Gassendi, according to whom cold was due to specific
atoms. Boyle refers to his erstwhile assistant Hooke’s work: “Concerning the
figures of frozen Urine I shall say nothing, the accurate description of curious
Mr. Hook having so fully and truly performed that part of my task.” Thus Boyle
seemingly endorses Hooke’s analysis.30
Hooke’s work was in English and was not widely read outside Britain; how-
ever, it appeared one year before Boyle’s Origine and it is possible that it may have
set Boyle’s thinking in motion. I have argued elsewhere that in all probability
Malpighi’s use of the notion of “plastic powers” can be ascribed to Boyle, who
contributed to unmooring it from its classical Aristotelian and Galenic roots and
reinterpreting it in a way that at the very least was not antithetical to a mecha-
nistic perspective. In The Origine of Formes and Qualities (1666), Boyle drew a
distinction between the nature of plastic power and their mode of operating: he
bracketed off the former, or the nature of the agent, arguing that any agent would
have to operate on matter in the same way. In his treatise Boyle begins with a the-
oretical part and then provides some examples of observations, the first of which
is on the formation of the chick in the egg, one likely to have attracted Malpighi’s
attention. In a passage on the transmutation, as he says, or alterations of the egg’s
contents during the process of formation of the chick, Boyle states:
I very well foresee it may be objected that the Chick with all its parts is not a Me-
chanically contrived Engine, but fashion’d out of matter by the Soul of the Bird lodg’d
chiefly in the Cicatricula, which by its Plastick power fashions the obsequious Matter
and becomes the Architect of its own Mansion. But not here to examine whether any
Animal except Man be other than a Curious Engine, I answer, that this Objection
invalidates not what I intend to prove from the alledg’d Example. For let the Plastick
Principle be what it will, yet still, being a Physical Agent, it must act after a Physical
manner; and having no other Matter to work upon but the White of the Egg, / it can
work upon that Matter but as Physical Agents, and consequently can but divide the
Matter into the minute parts of several Sizes and Shapes, and by Local Motion vari-
ously context them according to the Exigency of the Animal to be produc’d, though
from so many various Textures of the produc’d parts there must naturally emerge
such differences of Colours, Tasts, and Consistencies, and other Qualities as we have
been taking notice of. That which we are here to consider, is not what is the Agent or
Efficient in these Productions, but what is done to the Matter to effect them.31
The last sentence clarifies that Boyle’s concern at that point was not to discuss the
nature of the agent in the process of generation; rather, he wished to study the
effect in the form of the production and changes of various qualities of matter
from the egg’s white. Earlier he had stated that egg white is a similar part; name-
ly, every portion of it appears similar to any other to the senses, much like bone.
However, subjecting it to distillation led to the production of several substances,
such as phlegm, salt, oil, and earth; he leaves open the question as to whether
they preexisted or were formed by the distillation process. Moreover, echoing
Harvey, he also discusses the many transformations occurring in its substance in
the formation of the chick, involving changes from transparent to opaque, the
appearance of colors, changes in taste, and in hardness, as in the formation of
the beak, for example.32
Boyle argued that regardless of what one understands by “plastic power,”
his argument would still hold. In fact, pushing the issue of the nature of plastic
power aside in order to focus on its mode of operation was not a neutral move
with regard to a mechanistic understanding of the body. To his contemporaries
matters would have looked quite different because Boyle appeared to have a clear
target in mind: readers would not have failed to notice a direct if implicit attack
on William Harvey, who is referred to as a “recenter Anatomist” earlier in the
text. Boyle was intimately familiar with Harvey’s treatise on generation and had
discussed it in his own work. Harvey broadly followed Aristotle and attributed a
role to the soul and its faculties and plastic powers in generation. Boyle’s analysis
and reference to the cicatricula follow Harvey’s views, while challenging his phil-
osophical stance. As we have seen above, in De generatione animalium Harvey
had put forward precisely the argument Boyle was opposing by denying any role
to local motion in the way the plastic power operates. Boyle was working very
much within the corpuscular and mechanical framework Harvey had rejected;
he saw “plastick powers” as “physical agents” operating by dividing matter into
particles of different sizes and shapes and arranging them appropriately by local
motion.33
In a later passage from The Origine of Formes and Qualities discussing the fig-
ures of salts, Boyle rejects the existence of plastic powers in the process of mineral
formation, though he accepts them to explain the formation of plant seeds and
animals: “Though God has thought fit to make things Corporeal after a much
more facile and intelligible way, then by the intervention of substantial Forms;
and though the Plastick power of Seeds, which in Plants and Animals I willingly
admit, seem not in our case to be needful.”34 Boyle differed from the Epicureans
and from Descartes and questioned whether matter, either by chance as with
the former, or set in motion according to given laws as with the latter, could
produce such an organized structure as an animal body. He attributed seminal
principles to God, as rather mysterious mechanical contrivances or engines set
in the world at its creation. In an unpublished essay on spontaneous generation,
probably dating from the late 1650s, he intimates as much; having described a
number of processes arranged by human agents, he then states: “And shall we
readily allow soe much foresight & contrivance to a Mechanicall artificer, and
shall we scruple to allow much better Mechanismes to (the Author even of Artifi-
cers) the Omniscient God himself, in the Production of his Great Automaton, the
World?”35 Thus, while Boyle legitimized plastic powers and seminal principles, he
crucially reinterpreted them within a different philosophical domain with regard
to their nature and especially mode of operation: they became a question as much
as an answer. He was prepared to reinterpret them substantively with respect to
traditional views, by rejecting Harvey’s claims, as we have seen, or by denying
substantial forms, as in this case.36
Boyle adopts a similar approach to the role of the agent and patient elsewhere.
In The Excellency of Theology (1674), for example, he states: “The chief thing, that
Inquisitive Naturalists should look after in the explicating of difficult Phaenom-
ena, is not so much what the Agent is or does, as, what changes are made in
the Patient, to bring it to exhibit the Phaenomena that are propos’d.” The specific
example he provides is that of corn and cornmeal:
If Corn be reduc’d to Meal, the Materials and shape of the Mil[l]stones, and their
peculiar Motion and Adaptation, will be much of the same kind, and (though they
should not, yet) to be sure the grains of Corn will suffer a various contrition and
comminution in their passage to the form of Meal; whether the Corn be ground by
a Water-mill, or a Wind-mill, or a Horse-mill, or a / Hand-mill; that is, by a Mill
whose Stones are turned by Inanimate, by Brute, or by Rational, Agents. And, if an
Angel himself should work a real change in the nature of a Body, ’tis scarce conceiv-
able to us Men, how he could do it without the assistance of Local Motion.37
The import of this passage will become apparent in the sequel.

A decade later, in A Free Enquiry into the Vulgarly Receiv’ d Notion of Nature
(1686), Boyle denied a role to incorporeal substances and the rational soul in the
formation of the human fetus, relying on the opinions of a range of scholars, not
only philosophers and physicians but also divines and lawyers. He states:
Yet, that admirable Work of the Formation and Organization of the Foetus, or little
Animal, in the Womb, is granted by Philosophers to be made by the Soul of the
Brute (that is therefore said to be the Architect of his own Mansion), which yet is
neither an Incorporeal, nor a Rational Substance. And, even in a Human Foetus,
if we will admit the general Opinion of Philosophers, Physitians, Divines and
Lawyers, I may be allowed to observe, that the Human Body, as exquisite an Engine
as ’tis justly esteem’d, is form’d without the Intervention of the rational Soul, which
is not infus’d into the Body, ‘till This hath obtain’d an Organization, that fits it to
receive such a Guest; which is commonly reputed to happen about the end of the
Sixth Week, or before that of the Seventh.38
Here Boyle claims that the formation and organization of the fetus in brutes and
humans is due to a corporeal soul, which is not a rational substance. The role of
“plastick principles” and related notions in animal generation as well as in the
formation of hard stones from a fluid state is quite complex, as Inglehart has
recently argued in an in-depth analysis with a useful synopsis of the occurrences
of the adjective plastic in Boyle’s works. Boyle does not tell us in any detail what
the plastic power is; he suspends his judgment, while suggesting it to be some
kind of mechanical contrivance. Such were Boyle’s standing and prestige that
his using and seemingly bracketing off the notion of “plastick principle” gave
it legitimacy in philosophical discourse in Borelli’s and Malpighi’s eyes. Since
Malpighi had been trained in the Peripatetic philosophy and both were inti-
mately familiar with Harvey, the Italian investigators would have easily grasped
the context of Boyle’s passage and the fact that Boyle’s corpuscular philosophy
was lurking behind his analysis. In the process, they reinterpreted the notion of
plastic power. 39
Hooke and Boyle, and later Borelli and Malpighi, sought to mechanize more
and more aspects of the process of generation, while the notion of plastic power
was disentangled from its classical philosophical baggage, becoming a forma-
tive power operating in a chemical and mechanical fashion. While Borelli lat-
er sought to account for the fecundation process through mechanical devices,
Hooke suggested a surprising concrete example based on the analogy between
frozen urine and ferns.
Malpighi, Torti’s Egg, and His Bologna Rivals

The last few years of Malpighi’s life proved eventful: in the midst of bitter dis-
putes with his Bologna rivals, he was called to Rome by Innocent XII as pon-
tifical archiater. In those years Malpighi worked at two large works, an idiosyn-
cratic and imposing Vita, or “autobiography,” presenting his latest findings and
defending at the same time his works from criticism by his mentor Borelli and
his Bologna colleague Paolo Mini (1642–1693), among others; and a passionate
Risposta to the Bologna physician and Mini’s ally Giovanni Girolamo Sbaraglia
(1641–1710). Those works were published by the Royal Society in 1697, three
years after Malpighi’s death; both contain passages relevant to our analyses. I
shall focus on three related aspects: the problem of mechanistic explanations in
the process of generation in relation to an anomalous egg found at Modena; the
controversy with Sbaraglia; and the controversy with Mini over the role of the
faculties.40
Malpighi returns to the problem of the incubated egg in his Vita. There too,
as in the letter to Spon, he has recourse to the notion of a “plastic spirit” respon-
sible for the formation of the rudiments of the chick. After having outlined the
process of fecundation, Malpighi states:
Therefore it seems to be Nature’s custom to form all the parts individually from a
fluid as the first constituent, in such a way that she defines their outlines and outer-
most edges by delineating with more solid matter so many cribs or alveoli. Indeed,
she begins to form the rudiments of the parts to be delineated with membranous
utricles or small sacs, by means of whose pores, as if by as many glandular sieves,
she separates the confined fluid from the one in which they float, and the fluid thus
enclosed, when unsuitable portions have transpired and its parts have been suitably
adapted, becomes pervaded and organized by the plastic spirit.41
In the opening sentence Malpighi develops the same line of reasoning he had
outlined in his first work on the subject, De formatione pulli in ovo; namely, that
Nature forms the outlines or rudiments of the parts one by one starting from a
fluid state. The hardening of parts was a pretty standard phenomenon in many
domains, such as the formation of minerals and bones. The reference to utricles,
or small sacs, in the second sentence reinforces the connection with his earlier
speculations, with its implied notion of a mechanical-chemical machine that is
assembled and at the same time shaped from the interaction among its fluid indi-
vidual components. The second sentence outlines how the process occurs: Mal-
pighi presents a standard mechanistic account based on filtration, whereby pores
enable the transfer of material from the inside to the outside, leaving behind
parts that have become suitably adapted and therefore pervaded by the plastic
spirit. Borelli had outlined similar processes of selective filtration in the final sec-
tion of Lorenzo Bellini’s (1643–1704) treatise in the kidneys. Malpighi further
compares the pores of the separating membrane to “glandularum cribri”: glan-
dular sieves were the cornerstone of his mechanistic understanding of the body.
Here Malpighi was seeking to account for plastic spirits in a canonical mecha-
nistic and chemical fashion by explaining the formative process of the embryo in
terms of the filtration and selection of suitable fluid matter contained inside utri-
cles and small sacs. The appropriate chemical mix is achieved not by adding the
proper ingredients but by filtering away the inappropriate ones, though of course
at a later stage the external fluid reaches the cicatricula to provide nutrition. It is
worth looking again at his earlier figures (figs. 4.1 and 4.2), with those concentric
bands of alternating fluid and more solid matter: Malpighi plausibly sought a
mechanistic interpretation of the visual evidence he had provided, pushing the
process of selective filtration to the fecundation stage.42
Fig. 4.5. Encased examples of “limon citratus.” Malpighi, Vita, in Opera posthuma,
plate XIII. Courtesy of the Lilly Library.
Another reference to plastic force can be found in the context of a different,

exceedingly interesting, discussion. In a long excursus in Vita Malpighi discusses
a “monstrous” egg sent to him from Modena by the ducal physician Francesco
Torti in 1691. The egg was peculiar because it enclosed three smaller eggs, one
inside the other, as shown in an enclosed plate. At the time of the exchange with
Torti, Malpighi was concerned with the possible implications of this case for
the theory adopted by Malebranche and Swammerdam, whereby all creatures
were created ab initio by God and were encased one inside the other, a view later
known as emboîtement. Malpighi questioned such a view and argued instead that
each generation produces the eggs of the successive one.43
In De polypo cordis (On the Heart Polyp), Malpighi had argued that mon-
sters could be helpful in grasping Nature’s mode of operating, as if by erring
she revealed her secrets; thus, Torti’s egg posed a problem for him, since he was
considering it as an exception or a mere anomaly devoid of broader implications.
In 1691 Malpighi implied that the problem had to be investigated further with
additional instances; indeed, he did so in his Vita, discussing the Modena egg in
conjunction with a few seemingly similar cases encountered in plants, which he
thought offered simpler examples of nature’s way of operating. Malpighi relied
on the study of citrus fruits by the Sienese Jesuit Giovanni Battista Ferrari, which
discusses examples of “limon citratus” growing one inside the other, like Russian
dolls, visible at the top in the enclosed plate (fig. 4.5). Malpighi followed a strat-
egy he had adopted elsewhere, based on the assumptions that nature is funda-
mentally uniform and that its formations develop with growing complexity from
plants to animals. Malpighi was not alone in discussing similar cases for a range
of reasons: in De generatione animalium Harvey, too, had mentioned a small egg
with its hard shell growing inside another one, leading him to argue that the shell
is framed like the rest of the egg inside the womb by the “Plastick faculty”; Har-
vey also mentioned having found a perfectly shaped small lemon growing inside
another one, something he had heard was common in Italy. In Vita, however,
Malpighi’s focus shifts from challenging Swammerdam to reconsidering the for-
mation process, his conclusion being that the monstrous egg and related plant
cases arose from copia materiae, or an unusual abundance of matter.44
His preliminary drawings of Torti’s egg reveal the same interest in the cog-
nitive role of color he had shown in his study of the formation of the chick in
the egg: Malpighi liked to combine pencil and sanguigna (red chalk) in order to
highlight different structures. Unfortunately, the black-and-white engraving in
the Opera posthuma is quite confused and does not render the original satisfacto-
rily. Therefore, Malpighi’s original drawings found among his papers at the Bolo-
gna University Library help the legibility of the images, especially in identifying
the different eggs, whose shells are in pencil, whereas their interiors are drawn in
Fig. 4.6. Monstrous Modena egg. Malpighi, Vita, plate XII. Courtesy of the Lilly
Library.
Fig. 4.7. Sketch of the monstrous Modena egg and “limon citratus.” Marcello Mal-
pighi manuscripts, Biblioteca Universitaria, Bologna, ms 936 I K, c. 37. By permis-
sion of the Alma Mater Studiorum Bologna University— Biblioteca Universitaria,
Bologna. No futher reproduction or duplication of this image is allowed in any
form.
sanguigna. His friend Silvestro Bonfiglioli (1637–1696) prepared for publication

the final manuscript of Malpighi’s Opera posthuma from chaotic manuscripts.
Figure 4.7 appears to be the preparatory sketch for the printed version: since
different colors were not used for printing, here the portions originally drawn
in pencil, as opposed to sanguigna, are rendered with hatched lines enclosed by
two broadly parallel outlines: the four eggs are clearly identifiable. The bottom
section shows a sketch of the “limon citratus” (figs. 4.6–7).45
In the image labeled “Figure 1” at the top, A is the first egg; the two globules
C at the top and D at the bottom are portions of its yolk; E is the white of the
first egg, F is a hard substance divided into a double sheet or plate (“lamina”), still
part of the first egg. B is the second egg, with its shell G; I and K are its white, and
H its yolk. In K was enclosed body L, which were drawn separately in Figures 2
and 3, showing its outer surface and cross section, respectively. S and V, inside
B, are part of the third egg; R is its shell with a chestnut color, S its yolk, and V
its white—which is in small amount. Finally, T is the fourth egg, which is also
shown separately in greater detail in Figure 4, X being its yolk.46
Whereas Malebranche and Swammerdam had all but eliminated the problem
of generation by ascribing to God the simultaneous creation of all successive gen-
erations ab initio, Malpighi needed to explain how animals and plants originated
from their parents at each successive generation—sexually in animals and in his
opinion asexually in plants. It is in that context that he discusses the formation
process further and refers in an unproblematic way to plastic forces. Discussing
the cases of multiple fruits growing inside each other like Torti’s egg, Malpighi
attributes the outcome to a combination of the abundance of matter and the
defect of plastic force, “quia plastic vis forte deficit.”47
In fact, Malpighi also identifies common elements between the formation
of stones and that of eggs, stating: “Also in the concretion of stones very similar
phenomena not rarely occur.” Malpighi refers specifically to the formation of jet
or gagates from a fluid state, as Boyle and Nicolaus Steno had argued.48 As he
puts it: “In the generation of as many eggs it is necessarily required an abundance
of fluid, which must be heterogeneous, namely consisting of various particles,
of which some are heavier, others lighter, some tending to become rarer, others
much disposed to concretion.”49 We find here an emphasis on heterogeneity. If
matter were homogeneous, no developmental process could take place; it is the
difference among particles that explains the formation of the chick in the egg.
The heterogeneity is already present in the egg; the fecundation process adds mo-
tion and activity rather than matter. Together with the notion of fermentation,
according to which the elementary components of a fluid are set in motion and
rearranged, differences in weight, size, and the tendency to rarefy or come to-
gether allow some flexibility in providing explanations blurring the line between
living and nonliving. Here fluidity plays a crucial role, because a wide range of
processes can take place in a fluid—and fluid motion is complex, allowing for a
range of explanations, like the separation or aggregation of particles.50
In describing such processes Malpighi had recourse to a key notion in his
worldview, the necessitas materiae, implying the presence of physical laws apply-
ing to living bodies and nonliving matter alike and emphasizing the material
as opposed to the final cause: “Moreover in the first formation of jet many eggs
occur, not because stones derive their origin in a necessary fashion from the
egg of living bodies, but because of the necessity of matter.”51 The comparison
between the process of fecundation and the formation of stones in terms of the
necessitas materiae highlights that by “plastic force” Malpighi understood chemi-
cal and physical processes active in living and nonliving as boding alike, without
any soul or faculty at play; therefore, he reinterpreted plastic forces within a novel
philosophical framework. In line with his belief in continuity in nature and
progressive levels of complexity from minerals, to plants, to animals, Malpighi
compares the formation process in jets and onions (“cepae”), with superimposed
layers or integuments enveloping each other.52
Malpighi’s posthumous Vita appeared together with his Risposta to Sbaraglia;
although Risposta does not deal specifically with the formative process, it does
provide a detailed philosophical perspective on his approach to anatomy: “It
pleased Nature, as it accomplished her admirable works in animals and vegeta-
bles, to compose their organic body with many machines, which are necessarily
made of many minuscule parts arranged and situated in such a fashion, that they
form an admirable organ, whose structure and composition for the most part
cannot be grasped with the unaided eye, without the help of the microscope.”53
We see here a defense of a mechanistic understanding of the body in an exactly
contemporary text to the Vita. Nor is this an exception, since such statements
are very frequent. At one point, Malpighi cites approvingly an especially explicit
passage from the Bibliotheca anatomica: “Since the bodies of animals appear as
mere machines, or automata, . . .” Such statements provide a valuable context
to interpret Malpighi’s references to plastic forces and spirits, suggesting that
they are no exceptions to his widely known philosophical stance; like Borelli,
Malpighi followed Boyle’s lead in reinterpreting the adjective plastic, shedding its
older connotations and using it in a looser sense as a mechanical formative agent,
and then seeking to flesh out his account by means of references to fluid saccules
and glandular sieves.54
In his Risposta to Sbaraglia, Malpighi had to defend his work against the
charge that microscopic anatomy, the study of plants, and comparative anatomy
were largely, perhaps even completely, irrelevant to the art of healing, medicina
practica. In the course of his elaborate and lengthy rebuttal, Malpighi put for-
ward an argument coming straight from Boyle’s Excellency of Theology; moreover,

its structure echoes Boyle’s claim in Origine of Formes that whatever one under-
stands by “plastick principle,” it has to operate as a physical agent. Over forty
years ago Malpighi’s passage attracted the attention of a shrewd investigator such
as François Duchesneau, who rightly emphasized the role of analogical reason-
ing in Malpighi’s anatomical explanations. Here I wish to reconsider Malpighi’s
passage from a different perspective, focusing specifically on disease. At the end
of a detailed list of machines used to investigate disease, Malpighi puts forward
an argument in defense of mechanistic pathology, implying that the soul is a
mere name:
I know that the way in which our soul makes use of our body in its operations is
ineffable: it is certain, however, that in the operations of vegetation, of sense, and
of motion, the soul is forced to operate in accordance with the machine to which it
is applied, in such a way that a clock or a mill are moved equally by a lead or stone
pendulum, or a brute, or a man: indeed, if an angel moved it, it would move in
the same way by the changing of sites, as those due to brutes, etc. Therefore, since
I do not know the angel’s mode of operation, but [I know] the exact structure of
the mill, I would understand that motion and action; and if the mill was broken, I
would try to repair its wheels and their wrong arrangement, neglecting to investi-
gate the mode of operation of the moving angel.55
Much like Boyle’s passages cited above, here too we find a shift from ontological
to operational concerns, or from the efficient to the material cause. Much like
Boyle’s analogous argument from The Origine of Formes and Qualities was implic-
itly responding to Harvey, also in Malpighi’s passage there is more than meets the
eye. Malpighi argues that the operations of the body, not only those of vegetation
but also those of sense and motion, are mechanical and the agent responsible for
them, whatever it may be, has to operate within mechanical bounds. Thus, here
he separates the ontological from the operational question and assumes the latter
to be answered in a mechanistic way. His move, however, was not a retreat from
his mechanistic agenda. Throughout his career Malpighi denied any role to the
soul and its faculties in processes related to vegetation, for example, thus in one
respect his argument appears as a way to reconfigure ontological and operational
issues by giving precedence to the latter while paying lip service to the former,
because ultimately, he believed that the soul played no role in standard physio-
logical processes. The context of his passage, however, is mainly therapeutic rath-
er than merely anatomical or philosophical, as evidenced by the final sentence:
Malpighi’s concern is how to address disease. In this context, he emphasizes the
operational aspect—twice over, in fact, once with respect to the functioning
of the body, the other with respect to therapeutic practices. Malpighi defends
a mechanistic therapeutic strategy based on structures and ultimately also an

understanding of disease; both were based on the parallel between, on the one
hand, the body and, on the other, a clock or a mill, two canonical mechanical
devices operating “by the changing of sites,” much like Boyle’s plastic force op-
erated by local motion.56
Malpighi continues his Risposta with a passage highlighting the tension be-
tween his mechanistic program and its actual results: “In the parts then where
the mechanical way with which nature operates has not yet been entirely discov-
ered, as in the operations of the brain, it is sufficient to the physician for the time
being to reach those mechanical ways that hinder and offend the minimal struc-
ture that nature employs, which are many: and the physician should heal not
the faculties of the operating soul, but remove the impediments and that which
affects the movements of the body part.”57 Here the adjective “mechanical” is
repeated, even when Malpighi deals with such a complex organ as the brain, and
has to admit that nature’s ways of operating is obscure. Clearly the notion that
nature operates mechanically was not simply an empirical result established in all
instances but a project: although the operations of the brain have “not yet been
entirely discovered,” he seems to have no doubt about their mechanical nature, a
point that did not escape Sbaraglia’s strictures. The last sentence of the quotation
emphasizes again therapeutic concerns and strategies. The following passage too,
dealing with pathology more generally, emphasizes again twice that nature op-
erates mechanically and that knowledge of mechanics can help devising cures “a
priori,” a daring and optimistic view.58
Both before and after Malpighi, physicians of different stripes advocated a
role for immaterial entities in explaining disease. In De generatione animalium,
for example, as we have seen above, Harvey ties the process of generation to the
study of disease by drawing a parallel between the act of conception and the
spreading of “Contagious, Epidemical and Pestilential Diseases,” in that both
occur without the transmission of matter.59 Further, Joan Baptista van Helmont
was an especially prominent advocate of the role of immaterial archei, or inner
alchemists, in health and disease: for him disease resulted from the defeat of a
bodily archeus by a disease archeus coming from the outside. In his initial at-
tack on Malpighi, Sbaraglia claimed that according to van Helmont a general
knowledge of anatomy was sufficient, and that it was pointless to mangle a large
number of corpses to trace the ending of a tiny vein. Malpighi’s Risposta chal-
lenges the Helmontian system as a whole: “But since, according to van Helmont,
it is reproachable to spend one’s entire life in search of the minimal structure
of the parts, we could with greater justification declare reproachable to devote
all one’s time to looking for the Archeus, sympathies, archeal diseases, caused
by fanciful and ill-conceived ideas, the universal medicine, and other strange
phantasies, which with new words hide the weakness of a totally abstract way of
philosophizing.”60 Malpighi’s attack on van Helmont was not purely abstract or
rhetorical, since both Mini and Sbaraglia were broadly sympathetic to a chemi-
cal understanding of disease and both defended the role of immaterial faculties,
which perhaps were not so different from the archei of the Flemish physician,
both in health and disease. Sbaraglia defended van Helmont’s ingenium while
questioning his terminology.61
Not surprisingly, many of the pathological cases Malpighi discusses involve
the obstruction of glands and his attempt to remove those obstructions largely
through diet. The emphasis on a mechanistic understanding of the body in ther-
apeutics resurfaced a couple of decades later in the work of Malpighi’s follower
Ippolito Francesco Albertini. Albertini argued that as for water mills needing
repair it is opportune to divert the course of water, so in vessels affected by an-
eurysms it is advisable to remove the amount of blood by decreasing the patient’s
food intake.62 Sbaraglia did not accept this strategy and composed a detailed
rejoinder to Malpighi’s Risposta, the huge Oculorum et mentis vigiliae at distingu-
endum studium anatomicum, et at praxin medicam dirigendam (Night-Watches of
the Eyes and of the Mind for Discriminating Anatomical Study, and for Directing
Medical Praxis; 1704). Sbaraglia was to object to Malpighi’s argument, highlight-
ing its problematic status in the eye of contemporary readers hostile to a mech-
anistic understanding of the body: if the operations of the soul are “ineffable,”
he argued, how could they be seen as mechanical? Rather, they would be “vital”
operations. Setting aside arguments about the actions of the angel in Malpighi’s
passage, Sbaraglia challenged his defense of “a priori” therapies based on the
assumption—as opposed to any solid evidence—that the brain works mechan-
ically. He was far less optimistic and more cautious about disease and therapies,
arguing that even those physicians who “mechanismus non ignorarunt,” such as
Thomas Sydenham, did not believe that medicine could be founded a priori, as
Malpighi had obsessively stated throughout his Risposta. Here, by “mechanis-
mus” Sbaraglia means mechanistic explanations in general; he seemingly implied
that Sydenham was aware of such approaches, though he was not a mechanist
himself.63
In the contemporary response to Mini in his Vita Malpighi adopts a line of
reasoning similar to Boyle’s and to the one he adopted in his Risposta to Sbaraglia,
though this time the context was anatomical and philosophical rather than ther-
apeutic. In Medicus igne, non cultro necessario anatomicus (A Physician is Inevi-
tably an Anatomist with Fire, not with the Lancet; 1678), Mini had argued that
the separation of fluids in the glands depends not on the structure of the glands,
which by themselves would lack the discriminating power to perform the task,
but on Galenic faculties—Mini refers to Galen, On the Natural Faculties. Mini
had tried to explain matters with the example of a musical simile: no doubt the
sound produced by a string instrument depends on its structure, though it also
depends on the player. Similarly, the operations of the body depend partly on its
structure, though they also depend on the body’s vital powers (potestates vitales);
otherwise, a cadaver would not differ from a living body. Therefore, structures
alone are insufficient to understand bodily operations.64
By contrast, Malpighi claimed that the faculty could act only through the
body: as such, in its action or actu secundo, the faculty is a mere name, nudum
nomen. According to scholastic philosophy, actus primus denotes the power to
perform an action; actus secundus denotes the actual exercise of that power, or
the action itself. Despite the Aristotelian framing, Malpighi’s reasoning echoes
Boyle’s in shifting the focus from the nature of the object to its mode of opera-
tion, or from the ontological to the operational level. However, there are also new
developments from Boyle’s approach. Initially Malpighi distinguished between
the nature of the faculty and its mode of operation, arguing that the latter had to
take place through the structure of the body, notably a filter, and was therefore
mechanical. In the end, however, he was not agnostic about the doctrine of the
faculties, least of all that glands are mechanical devices: he did not believe in the
faculties and rejected them as an empty name. Therefore, he used this line of
reasoning to challenge the very notion of the faculty, arguing back to its nature,
downplaying the ontological level in favor of the operational one. Going back to
Mini’s example, what would be lacking in a cadaver would be motion, or perhaps
structural features such as the tension of the parts of the opening of meati, not
vital powers. It is possible that both Malpighi’s claim that the faculty is an empty
name and his reasoning were related to a passage from On the Natural Faculties,
in which Galen argues that the notion of faculty (dunamis) is a relative concept,
because its existence is inferred as the cause of a known and visible effect or
activity, concluding somewhat ambiguously: “So long as we are ignorant of the
true essence of the cause which is operating, we call it a faculty. Thus we say that
there exists in the veins a blood-making faculty, as also a digestive faculty in the
stomach, a pulsatile faculty in the heart, and in each of the other parts a special
faculty corresponding to the function or activity of that part.”65 Malpighi was
familiar with this passage by Galen and commented sarcastically on it in a letter
to his anatomist friend and Borelli associate Bellini. In his Risposta to Sbaraglia,
Malpighi states that according to Galen the liver was coagulated blood, rather
than a collection of glands for the separation of bile, as he believed he had dis-
covered through the microscope. Had Galen had microscopes, Malpighi argued,
he would have seen the liver as an instrument for the separation of bile, rather
than for making blood. Malpighi saw his own work as uncovering structures
making the notion of faculty redundant, because those structures accounted for
previously seemingly inexplicable processes, which in the case of the liver was not
that of making blood but of mechanically filtering bile.66
The analysis of Malpighi’s investigations of the generation of the chick in the
egg, of fertilization, and of the problem of generation more broadly sheds light
on a significant aspect of his contributions while at the same time showing how
our reflections in previous chapters can be put to use in a concrete historical
investigation. In our case, paying close attention to attempts by Malpighi and
his contemporaries to make sense of the problem of fecundation helps us gauge
his intellectual itinerary and attitude to mechanistic interpretations. Likewise,
paying attention to images has enriched our understanding of Malpighi’s project
and difficulties, highlighting the challenge of bridging the gap between an em-
pirical descriptive account devoid of immediate philosophical implications and
his mechanistic program.
Hooke tentatively put forward the suggestion that nature has organizing
properties that he instantiated in the case of stacking alum components. Cold
is singled out as generating organized structures in the cases of frozen urine
and snowflakes—thus the expressions “seminal principle” and “plastick virtue”
are stripped of their traditional meanings and are reinterpreted in a radically
new framework. Despite having recourse to the notions of “plastic powers” and
“forces,” Malpighi—much like Hooke and Borelli—defended a mechanistic
understanding of the body even in the problematic case of generation. While
rejecting the doctrine of the faculties, Malpighi used those expressions with their
traditional meanings; by contrast, when he used the expressions “plastic spirit”
or “force,” he jettisoned their traditional meanings in favor of a mechanistic un-
derstanding unrelated to the ancient doctrine of the faculties of the soul or na-
ture. Since those notions changed meaning, they cannot be taken as unchanging
markers of a worldview, as Adelmann did when he ascribed Malpighi’s views to
an Aristotelian and Galenic tradition.
Malpighi tentatively argued that embryos result from the coming together
of different components in the form of fluid utricles or small sacs. Unlike as-
sembling a machine such as a clock, however, where the solid parts are already
formed, the embryonic assemblage involves a process whereby heterogeneous
fluid components are mutually shaped by chemical actions before hardening
or congealing. Particles come together and separate from each other; some go
through porous membranes and move outside to the surrounding fluid, leaving
more active parts inside; fluidity and semipermeable membranes offered what
Malpighi thought—or hoped—was a suitable account for these processes. The
chemical reactions Malpighi hypothesized for the process of fecundation result
from the separation of the appropriate components rather than the addition of
what we may call an external reagent: the semen provides merely motion and
activity, not a material component.
Malpighi’s mechanistic pronouncements were partly based on empirical evi-
dence, partly on analogies and philosophical considerations: they were among his
most speculative statements, which can be seen also as investigative projects that
bore a complex relationship to contemporary beliefs and practices by highlight-
ing the gap between his agenda and what his anatomical investigations—even
those based on advanced microscopy—could deliver.
Philosophical debates about the notion of mechanism have proved complex and
have raised a number of issues, such as teleology and levels of mechanistic expla-
nations, just to mention two examples. We have seen that a sensitive historical
analysis can be as complex and intellectually challenging as a philosophical one.
I started in chapter one with a provisional definition and an implicit promise to
return to the topic at the end. The criteria I outlined in my provisional definition
are quite restrictive and, while appropriate for the early modern period, would
have to be relaxed for later times: changing notions of machine, for example,
would require dropping the condition that the operation of a mechanism would
depend exclusively on the spatial arrangement of its parts, since later mecha-
nisms may rely on electromagnetic phenomena or even computers and informa-
tion technology, for example.1 While for later times one may follow Bechtel in
dropping the analogy with machines, this is not an option for our period.
Here I wish to follow the lead of Henry Stubbe’s 1671 definition, supported
by scores of contemporary texts we have discussed especially in chapter three.
I intend now to identify the varied and indeed contrasting reactions our term
induced at the time. We have seen that mechanism was used both for human
artifacts and nature’s creations and that there was a tension between them in
terms of perfection: the former often induced admiration for their ingenuity and
usefulness, as for Christiaan Huygens’s cycloidal pendulum or spring-regulated
watch; the latter provoked a wide range of responses. Some natural philosophers,
such as Robert Boyle, Robert Hooke, and Thomas Willis, expressed incredulity
that the world could result from random processes and saw mechanisms as es-
pecially worthy of admiration as God’s creations. Some divines such as Henry
More and Joseph Glanvill saw mechanisms, with the qualification of “mere”, as
a threat to religion. Depending on their perceived success in uncovering nature’s
mechanisms, investigators expressed a range of reactions: Hooke, for example,
displayed a quiet confidence at having revealed hidden contrivances through his
139
140 Concluding Reflections
microscopes; for the early Nehemiah Grew the process of uncovering mecha-
nisms helped make nature intelligible; Marcello Malpighi was often frustrated
at his inability to grasp the mysteries of nature, which he believed operated uni-
formly; by contrast, Edward Tyson’s comparative anatomy reveals admiration at
the variety of mechanisms nature has devised across different species.
Together with systematic experimentation and the mathematization of na-
ture, the mechanical philosophy has been seen in the literature as a key feature
of the Scientific Revolution. In their recent analysis of the problem, for example,
Daniel Garber and Sophie Roux have outlined a fourfold classification: “the gen-
eral program of substituting for the . . . scholastic philosophy, a new philosophy”;2
the rejection of the Aristotelian doctrine of matter and form, “and the correlated
adoption of an ontology according to which all natural phenomena can be un-
derstood in terms of the matter and motion of the small corpuscles that make up
the gross bodies”; “The comparison of natural phenomena, most specifically the
world of animals, to existing or imaginary machines”; and finally ”the ontology
associated with mechanics as a new mathematical science of motion.” The pres-
ent study builds on recent debates on the mechanical philosophy and challenges
the “all-or-nothing” approach that has characterized many investigations. Focus-
ing exclusively on the mechanical philosophy leads to a one-sided view obscuring
the multitude of transformations and reconceptualizations limited to individual
problems. Reliance on mechanism may involve a new philosophy replacing Ar-
istotle, but it may also remain a limited enterprise confined to specific domains
with no global anti-Aristotelian ambitions, as with Vesalius’s study of sutures in
the skull or bone articulations, for example. Similarly, the rejection of matter and
form and the belief that phenomena could be explained in terms of matter—in-
cluding its shape, size, texture, and at times additional properties—and motion
could be an overarching philosophical tenet but it could also apply to specific
domains, such as the valves in the veins and lymphatic system, as we have seen.
The comparison of natural phenomena and especially living organisms to
machines was—and still is—at the core of the notion of mechanism. Anatomists
routinely identified structures in plants and animals and interpreted them and
their operations by analogy with artificial devices, from comparing the eye to
the camera obscura to Hooke’s microscopic syringes and stinging nettle. Also, a
ligature applied to the arm could be seen from Harvey’s perspective as a mech-
anism preventing venous blood from flowing backward, though this was not
the case for those previous anatomists according to whom the ligature drew or
attracted blood. Conversely, Vesalius’s observations on the structure of kidneys
and Malpighi’s study of the optic nerve of the swordfish refuted—in different
ways—naïve mechanism. Lastly, reliance on mechanics involved not only the
science of motion but also the comparison with simple machines, such as levers
Concluding Reflections 141
and wedges, and more elaborate ones, such as springs and pendulums.3 Thus
mechanisms prove helpful in enriching and problematizing our understanding
of the mechanical philosophy in crucial instances by shifting our gaze visually,
terminologically, and philosophically to some concrete examples instantiating
conceptual and practical concerns.
We have briefly seen music enter the scene in different forms: Descartes’s
pipes in a church organ exemplified the nervous system, while Malpighi’s taut
and vibrating lyre strings exemplified nerve fibers. By such comparisons both
sought to underpin their views of the body as a machine. Borelli used the analo-
gy of an instrument being played by a trained musician to instantiate the action
of the soul on the heart muscle: the soul would be acting neither according to
mechanical necessity nor to conscious free will, but without realizing it, “sine
advertentia.” By contrast, by comparing the body to a musical instrument and
the musician to the soul, Mini sought to undermine mechanism, thus empha-
sizing the crucial role of the musician/soul in the operations of the body—an
instrument without a player produces no sound, a body without a soul is a mere
cadaver.4 Music was contested territory at the intersection between mechanistic
and antimechanistic views.
In each chapter we have seen examples of experiments; namely, conscious
interventions designed to investigate the course of nature. I mention some of
those related to mechanisms, though some were not—such as Galen’s damaging
an animal’s brain in order to ascertain the role of pneuma and the soul. Chapter
one discusses Galen experimenting on deglutition in cadavers. In chapter two
we have seen Harvey exploring the unidirectional flow of blood through the
valves in the veins by inserting a probe in a vein in both directions and through
ligatures. Moreover, Ruysch applied ligatures to the milky vessels to study the
chyle’s direction of flow and Willis and Lower injected ink into a dog’s artery in
order to show that all arteries supplying the brain are interconnected. Chapter
three mentions Descartes and his readers experimenting on the pupil’s dilation
in response to differing lighting conditions and degrees of attention. And lastly,
we have seen Hooke dropping bullets along an incline to study the geometrical
shape of their distribution. Some of the experiments demonstrate the mecha-
nism’s operation, whether in a living body or in a cadaver. Others, such as those
involving the pupil’s dilation, strictly speaking do not establish the mechanistic
nature of the operation but make it plausible, at least to some natural philoso-
phers such as Boyle; however, the precise nature of the hypothetical mechanism
was hard to fathom. Lastly, some experiments, such as those by Hooke with
bullets, involved artificial systems and were intended to establish the plausibility
of some mechanistic processes in living bodies, such as the formation or highly
organized structures.5
142 Concluding Reflections
Here, I follow recent scholarship in considering observation and experiment

not as polar opposites, one passive and the other active, but as part of a contin-
uum. Often observation required active intervention aimed at uncovering not
so much nature’s regularities as her way of operating. Anatomical observations
occupy an important position in this history: they involved elaborate procedures
and at times injections and microscopy, which could be highly interventionist.6
At times the search for mechanisms proved successful in the eyes of early
modern observers, as in the identification of some macroscopic structures or in
the anatomy of insects. At other times it proved elusive, as in the minute oper-
ations of “glands” or in the study of generation. Often, however, mechanisms
remained plausible explanations, concrete or even abstract projects rather than
becoming detailed accounts of some of the pressing cases anatomists and natural
philosophers were seeking. This tension is a key additional reason why focusing
on the notion of mechanism offers a fertile perspective from which to review the
transformations of knowledge related to the mechanical philosophy in the early
modern period.
Notes
Introduction
1. Machamer, Darden, and Craver, “Thinking about Mechanisms,” 14, 23. A recent
useful overview I rely on is Craver and Darden, In Search of Mechanisms. See also Glen-
nan and Illari, Routledge Handbook; Glennan, “Mechanisms” and “Rethinking Mecha-
nistic Explanations.”
2. Recent works touching on the mechanical philosophy include Bennett, “Mechan-
ics’ Philosophy;” Gabbey, “What Was ‘Mechanical,’” “Mechanical Philosophies,” and
“Philosophia”; Roux, “Cartesian Mechanics,” esp. 32–33, and “From the Mechanical
Philosophy”; Newman, Atoms and Alchemy, esp. ch. 6; Hattab, “Mechanical Philosophy,”
72; and Garber, “Remarks.”
3. Descartes, Lettres, 2:50. Gabbey, “‘Mechanical Philosophy,’” 14, 18–19.
4. More, Immortality of the Soul, preface, §§11, 12, and 15. Gabbey, “Philosophia,”
220–21.
5. Boyle, Certain Physiological Essays, 122. Garber, “Remarks.”
6. Hattab, “Mechanical Philosophy.” Roux, “From the Mechanical Philosophy,” esp.
31–33.
Chapter 1: Framing Mechanisms

1. Machamer, Darden, Craver, “Thinking about Mechanisms,” 2, 15, see also 22.
2. Bechtel, Discovering Cell Mechanisms, 26; for orchestration see also 32–33. Crav-
er and Darden, Mechanisms, 26–27. Glennan, “Rethinking Mechanistic Explanations,”
S344.
3. Bechtel, Discovering Cell Mechanisms, 4.
4. Bechtel, Discovering Cell Mechanisms, 22, 29–30.
5. Distelzweig, “‘Mechanics.’”
6. Bechtel, Discovering Cell Mechanisms, 20; see also 30n7.
7. Distelzweig, “Descartes’s Teleomechanics.” Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism, Experi-
ment, Disease, 15–16.
8. Bechtel, Discovering Cell Mechanisms, 45; for a more balanced view in which Bichat
is identified as a vitalist see Bechtel, “Addressing the Vitalist’s Challenge,” 353.
143
144 Notes to pages 6–11
9. Haigh, Xavier Bichat, 113–16. Rey, Naissance, 321–72. Giglioni, “Jean-Baptiste

Lamarck,” 25, 30. Wolfe, “Medical Vitalism.” Wolfe and Terada, “Animal Economy,”
esp. 542–46. On the Montpellier school see the entry “méchanicien (médecine)” in Did-
erot and d’Alembert, Encyclopédie.
10. Steno, Lecture, 139; I have minimally modified the translation by Gustav Scherz.
11. Rey, Naissance, 386; Williams, Cultural History, 276; Wolfe and Terada, “Animal
Economy,” 539n4.
12. Machamer, Darden, and Craver, “Thinking about Mechanisms,” 3, provides a
definition based on “entities and activities.” Craver and Darden, In Search of Mechanisms,
ch. 2.
13. Bertoloni Meli, “Machines,” 98–99; Mechanism, Experiment, Disease, 123. One
of the contentious issues was whether fermentation played a role in the process of secre-
tion of urine.
14. Dear, Discipline, 151–52.
15. Clericuzio, “Mechanism,” “Gassendi.” Borelli, De motu animalium. Smith, Di-
vine Machines, 78–81. On Gassendi see Bloch, La philosophie de Gassendi, and Messeri,
Causa.
16. The passage from Hooke, Micrographia, 91, is discussed in chapter three. These
matters are discussed in greater detail in chapter three. See Hirai, “Invisible Hand,”
“Mysteries,” Medical Humanism. Inglehart, “Boyle, Malpighi,” “Seminal Ideas.”
17. Hatfield, “Mechanizing the Sensitive Soul”; Park, “Organic Soul.” Park’s views
have been problematized in Edwards, “Body.”
18. Boyle, Free Enquiry, 373–75. Leibniz, Leibniz-Stahl Controversy, 31. On Borelli
see Grondona, “L’esercitazione,” 455–62. Des Chene, “Mechanisms,” “Abstracting from
the Soul.”
19. Garber, “Remarks.”
20. Von Staden, “Physis and Technē,” esp. 40–41. Berryman, Mechanical Hypothesis,
115–17, 158–59, 200. Hieronymus Fabricius too compared the valves in the veins to those
in the heart in De venarum ostiolis, 52 (English trans.) and 73 (Latin ed.).
21. Distelzweig, “‘Meam de motu,’” “Mechanics,” 128. Harvey, Two Anatomical Ex-
ercises, in Anatomical Exercises, 36–38 (second reply to Riolan). See Galen, “Whether
blood is naturally contained in the arteries,” in On Respiration, 179–81; and Galen, “On
Anatomical Procedures (I procedimenti anatomici),” in Opere scelte, 248–49. See also
Amacher, “Galen’s Experiment.”
22. Pecquet, New Anatomical Experiments, 144, 149. Ruysch identified valves in the
tiny lymphatic vessels, documenting an elaborate hydraulic control system: see Ruysch,
Dilucidatio. Bertoloni Meli, “Machines,” 98–101, 103.
23. Malpighi, Opere scelte, 491–631; Bertoloni Meli, “Mechanistic Pathology.”
24. Schiefsky, “Galen’s Teleology”; von Staden, “Teleology and Mechanism”; Jouan-
na, “La notion de nature.”
Notes to pages 12–19 145
25. Galen, On the Natural Faculties, I.7, II.3. Von Staden, “Teleology and Mecha-
nism.” Leith, “Pores and Void.”
26. Galen, Usefulness of the Parts, V.6 and V.13; On the Natural Faculties, I.12 and
I.13. Shank, “From Galen’s Ureters,” 333–34, 349n55.
27. Galen, On the Natural Faculties, III.8; Brock in Loeb/Harvard ed., 265, 267;
267n1 states: “I.e., this is a purely mechanical process.”
28. Bertoloni Meli, “Machines,” 107–12.
29. Galen, On the Natural Faculties, III.14 and 15, Loeb/Harvard ed., 317, 319. This
and other examples are discussed in Riskin, Restless Clock, 52–53.
30. Berryman, “Galen,” 246. Berryman, “Imitation.”
31. See the introduction by Vegetti and Lanza in Galen, Opere scelte, 835–45. Aristo-
tle, Opere biologiche, 540–41, 543–49.
32. Galen, On My Own Opinions, 62–63, 108–9, and Nutton’s commentary on
that work, 201. Galen, On the Natural Faculties, I.1. Debru, “Physiology.” Von Staden,
“Body.”
33. Galen, On the Opinions of Hippocrates and Plato, 442–45. Donini, “Psychology.”
Hankinson, “Body and Soul.” García Ballester, “Soul and Body.”
34. Galen, On Mixtures, in Selected Works, 261; I have slightly altered the translation.
Galen, Kühn, Opera omnia, 20 vols, I:635–6. Frede, “Galen’s Theology,” esp. 76, 86–87,
93–94, 96; and 110, 116 on mixtures.
35. Galen, Quod animi, III, in Psychological Writings, 381. See the introductions by
Peter Singer, 335–73, and Ivan Garofalo and Mario Vegetti in Galen, Opere scelte, 859–
79. The relevant passage is at 973.
36. Keller, “Drebbel’s Living Instruments,” 39–74. Galen, On the Natural Faculties,
III.15. Boyle, Tracts, 141–42.
37. Berryman, Mechanical Hypothesis, esp. 193–97. Garber, “Remarks.” Ragland,
“Chymistry,” esp. 17–18. Henry, “Robert Hooke.” Galluzzi, Mechanical Marvels, 216–19.
Bertoloni Meli, “Machines,” 98–103.
38. Hutchins, “Descartes.”
39. Hooke, Lectures, 7, 23.
40. Huygens, “Extrait.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, unsigned review
of Horologium oscillatorium, 60–69. Mahoney, “Drawing Mechanics.” Henry, “Hooke,”
adopts a different perspective on Hooke’s notions. Chapman, England’s Leonardo, ch.
10. Bertoloni Meli, Thinking with Objects, 240–46. Neumann, “Machina machinarum.”
Newman, “How Not to Integrate.”
41. Dechales, Cursus seu mundus, 2:211–32. Wilson provides valuable perspectives
on the complexity of elasticity in Physics Avoidance, ch. 3, and “What I Learned from the
Early Moderns,” forthcoming.
42. Boyle, Origine of Formes and Qualities, 11–12. [Oldenburg], review of Origine
of Formes and Qualities, 191. Garber, “Remarks,” 6–7, 11. Roux, “From the Mechanical
Philosophy,” 27. For a more comprehensive analysis see Newman, Atoms and Alchemy,
186.
43. Boyle, Origine of Formes and Qualities, 68–9.
44. Boyle, Origine of Formes and Qualities, 38–39, 45, 99, 181; on 192–93 Boyle
discusses the contrivance of seminal rudiments or principles. Anstey, Philosophy of Robert
Boyle.
45. Boyle, Tracts, 141.
46. Boyle, Excellency, separate pagination, Of the Excellency and Grounds of the Cor-
puscular or Mechanical Philosophy, 14.
47. Boyle, Excellency, 15.
48. Hooke, Micrographia, 134.
49. Anstey, Philosophy of Robert Boyle. Clericuzio, “Redefinition”; Elements, Principles
and Corpuscles, 103–48. Newman, Atoms and Alchemy. Inglehart, “Seminal Ideas.”
50. Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism, Experiment, Disease, ch. 4 and 144–45, 242–45,
262–63.
51. Hooke, Micrographia, preface.
52. Hooke, Micrographia, 141. Galen, On the Natural Faculties, II.3. Bertoloni Meli,
Mechanism, Experiment, Disease, 236–46; “Blood,” 519. Cheung, “Omnis fibra.” Fend,
Fleshing Out Surfaces, 43–44. The notion of plastic power is discussed in chapter four.
53. Detlefsen, “Biology and Theology,” 142.
54. Boyle, Origine of Formes and Qualities, 17–18.
55. For the entire section see Boyle, Origine of Formes and Qualities, 16–58. Anstey,
Philosophy of Robert Boyle, 103–5. Kaufman, “Locks.” The metaphor of the lock and key,
and its variations, such as a jammed lock, have become ubiquitous in modern biology,
including pathology.
56. Descartes, Discourse, 90–91. Hutchins, “Descartes,” 163–66. A broader investi-
gation of the art-nature or human-divine dichotomy is in Newman, Promethean Ambi-
tions.
57. Smith, Divine Machines, esp. chapter 3. Hutchin, “Dissolution of Life.” Detlefsen,
“Descartes on the Theory of Life,” 146–53.
58. Des Chene, “Mechanisms.”
Chapter 2: Mechanism and Visualization

1. Chambers, Cyclopædia, 2:521. I am grateful to an anonymous referee for this refer-
ence. For a more sustained discussion on definitions see chapters one and three.
2. For a discussion of machines see Belloni, “Schemi”; French, William Harvey’s
Natural Philosophy, 348–71; Roux, “À propos du colloque”; “Quelles machines.” Keller,
“Drebbel’s Living Instruments”; Bertoloni Meli, “Machines.”
3. Bechtel and Abrahamsen, “Explanation.” Craver and Darden, In Search of Mech-
anisms, 38–41, 136.
4. Dackerman, Prints, esp. 20, 25–26. The locus classicus for the older literature is
Ivins, Prints and Visual Communication.
5. Elkins, Poetics of Perspective, esp. 15, 18, 109, 117. The main work on the mathe-
matical theory of perspective is now Andersen, Geometry of an Art. Kemp, Science of Art.
6. Panofsky, “Artist, Scientist, Genius.” De Santillana, “Role.” Edgerton, “Renais-
sance Development,” “Galileo, Florentine ‘Disegno,’” and Heritage of Giotto’s Geometry.
Ackerman, “Involvement.” Kemp, Science of Art, esp. ch. 4. Pang, “Visual Representa-
tion,” esp. 143–47. Hentschel, Visual Cultures, 169–79.
7. Mahoney, “Diagrams and Dynamics.” Hall, “Didactic and the Elegant.” Topper,
“Towards an Epistemology,” esp. 241–45.
8. Edgerton, “Galileo Florentine ‘Disegno,’” and Heritage of Giotto’s Geometry, ch. 7.
See also among his many publications on this topic Bredekamp, “Gazing Hands.” See also
Dupré, “Visualization,” 23–30, 23n29.
9. Edgerton, “Renaissance Development.” Leng, “Social Character.” Sawday, Engines
of the Imagination, 78–116. Popplow, “Why Draw Pictures.” Lefèvre, Picturing Machines,
14.
10. Agricola, De re metallica, 155. Zonca, Novo teatro, 33–5; 86. On Zonca see the
introduction by Poni in Novo teatro (1985).
11. See the volume edited by Lefèvre, Picturing Machines, notably the essays by Pop-
plow, “Why Draw Pictures;” Leng, “Social Character;” Long, “Picturing the Machine;”
McGee, “Origins,” quotation at 55n3.
12. Edgerton, “Renaissance Development,” 169. Truitt, Medieval Robots.
13. Mahoney, “Diagrams and Dynamics,” esp. 198–201; “Diagrams and Dynamics
Revisited,” accessed August 27, 2018, http://www.princeton.edu/~hos/Mahoney/articles/
drawing/mpipaper.rev.v-1. See for example Clagett, Nicole Oresme.
14. Ekholm, “Fabricius’s and Harvey’s Representations.” Corneanu, “Teaching the
Mind.”
15. Long, “Picturing the Machine,” 141.
16. Lefèvre, Picturing Machines, 14. We will discuss Zonca and de Caus below.
17. Büttner et al., “Challenging Images of Artillery.” Many papers in Lefèvre, Pictur-
ing Machines, discuss these matters; see Henninger-Voss, “Measures of Success,” esp. 146.
Valleriani, Galileo Engineer. Brahe, Mechanica.
18. Kepler, Mysterium cosmographicum. Bennett, “Practical Geometry;” “Early Mo-
dern Mathematical Instruments.” Mosley, “Objects of Knowledge.” See also the contribu-
tion by Suzanne Karr Schmitt on “Printed Instruments” in Dackerman, Prints, 267–315.
19. Hunter, Wicked Intelligence, 5, 43–44. Huygens, Horologium oscillatorium, 4, 19,
20. The plate also shows a system of unit measures at far right. See also figure 3.1 below.
Leopold, “Christiaan Huygens,” “Longitude Timekeepers.” Mahoney, “Christiaan Huy-
gens,” “Drawing Mechanics.” Howard, “Marketing Longitude,” “Christiaan Huygens.”
Philosophical Transactions, unsigned review of Horologium oscillatorium, 6069.
20. Kusukawa, “Drawings of Fossils” and Picturing the Book. An older classic is Rud-
wick, Meaning of Fossils.
21. Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica.
22. Sappol, Dream Anatomy, 11–19. Kusukawa, Picturing the Book, 184, 233–37.
Lind, Studies in Pre-Vesalian Anatomy. De Ketham, Fasciculs medicinae (1491); Gersdorff,
Feldtbüch der Wundtartzney (1517). Works that did not include illustrations include Ben-
edetti, Historia corporis humani, sive Anatomice (1502, with a modern edition by Giovan-
na Ferrari, 1998) and Zerbi, Liber anatomiae (1502).
23. Harcourt, “Andreas Vesalius.” Kusukawa, Picturing the Book, 214–17.
24. Grondona, “Strutturistica,” 173–75. McVaugh, “Losing Ground.” Sappol, Dream
Anatomy, 11–15. Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica, 275.
25. Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica, I:378. See also II:148–53. Smith, “Ma-
chines,” 100–1.
26. Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica, V:591–92. The fact that according to Vesa-
lius the arteria venosa (veinlike artery, our pulmonary vein) carries air, not blood, does
not affect our discussion of the role of his images here. Leonardo’s drawings at the Royal
Collection were far more perspicuous in this respect. Among the extensive literature see
the recent Clayton and Philo, Leonardo da Vinci, Anatomist.
27. Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica, 14, for the image of the hinge. Vesalius,
Tabulae anatomicae sex can be accessed at http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/anatomy/vesalius
.html.
28. Fabricius, De venarum ostiolis, 4, in the margin: “Similitudo ostiolorum ab ob-
staculis quae aquam in molendinis detinent.” In the text: “Similem sane industriam hic
natura machinata, atque in molendinarum machinis ars molitur, in quibus artifices ut
aqua multa detineatur, ac pro molendinarum, ac machinarum usu reservetur, obstacula
nonnulla, quæ latine septa, & claustra, vulgo autem clausas, & rostas vocant, apponunt,
in quibus maxima aquæ copia, atque in summa ea, quæ necessaria est, veluti in apto ven-
tre colligitur: æque profecto natura in venis ipsis, quæ veluti fluviorum canales sunt per
ostiola, tum singula, tum geminata molitur.” The translation by Franklin, De venarum
ostiolis, 53–54, is problematic. At 5 Franklin claims, based on Richard Lower, that ostiola
could be translated as “floodgates.” Roby, “Natura machinata.” French, Harvey’s Natural
Philosophy, 357–58. O’Rourke Boyle, “Harvey in the Sluice,” 3. I have been unable to
verify the claim that the little doors would be vertically operated gates, as O’Rourke
Boyle has recently argued (“Harvey in the Sluice,” 13). See also Siraisi, “Vesalius,” 16.
Bates, “Machina ex Deo.”
29. For these terms I rely on Boerio, Dizionario del dialetto veneziano, which gives for
“chiusa” and “rosta” precisely the meaning of water diversion and storage for mills and
similar machinery meant by Fabricius.
30. Fabricius, De venarum ostiolis (English trans.), 58, 55.
31. Harvey, Anatomical Exercises, chapters 12, 13.
32. Harvey, Anatomical Exercises, 73, 30, 38. Zonca, Novo teatro, 10–13.
33. Harvey, De motu cordis, ch. 11, 48–53; Anatomical Exercises, 59–69. Bylebyl,
“Medical Side,” 36–37, 57–58. French, William Harvey’s Natural Philosophy, 107–10, 174.
34. Hentschel, Visual Cultures, 242–45. Rosenberg and Grafton, Cartographies of
Time.
35. Biagioli, Galileo’s Instruments, 138–41.
36. Von Staden, “Physis and Technē.” Berryman, Mechanical Hypothesis, discusses
Ctesibius at some length.
37. Walaeus, “Epistolae duae” (1645), 474–75. Schouten, “Johannes Walaeus.” Rag-
land, “Mechanism, the Senses, and Reason,” 179–84.
38. Walaeus, “Epistolae duae” (1645), 472–73; see also relevant passages on 475. Pec-
quet, New Anatomical Experiments, 12–18 and 92–133. Guerrini, Courtiers’ Anatomists,
46–49 and 77–80.
39. Ruysch, Dilucidatio, 36–37. Kooijmans, Death Defied.
40. Willis, Anatomy of the Brain, 68.
41. Willis, Anatomy of the Brain, 68. Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism, Experiment, Disease,
76–78.
42. Willis, Anatomy of the Brain, 60.
43. Descartes, L’ homme, 2, 12–13, 57–58. Kassler, “Man—A Musical Instrument,”
62–64. Riskin, Restless Clock, 35–42.
44. Descartes, La dioptrique, 35–37. Kemp, Science of Art, 191–92. Baigrie, “Des-
cartes’s Scientific Illustrations.” Zittel, “Abbilden und Überzeugen,” esp. 578–80. Lüthy,
“Logical Necessity.” Lefèvre, Inside the Camera Obscura. Chan, “Style and Substance.”
Gal and Chen-Morris, Baroque Science, ch. 1.
45. Descartes, L’ homme, 2; Discourse, 75–86. There are slight differences in Des-
cartes’s formulations but these are irrelevant to the present discussion. Alban-Zapata,
“Light and Man,” 162–63. Milanese, “Hobbes,” 255.
46. Borelli, De motu, vol. 2, ch. 6, especially proposition LXXX. Bertoloni Meli,
“Early Modern Experimentation,” 202–10.
47. Lindeboom, Biography, 743–44. On de la Forge see the entry in the Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy by Desmond Clarke: “Louis de La Forge,” last revised Novem-
ber 2, 2015, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/la-forge/. Wilkin, “Figuring the Dead Des-
cartes.” Zittel, “Conflicting Pictures.” Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism, Experiment, Disease,
85–88. Nadler, “Art.”
48. Descartes, De homine, 7–9; L’ homme, 5–6. Bartholin, Anatomia, 272–73.
49. Descartes, De homine, 20–24, at 22; L’ homme, 16–21, at 18. Sherrington, In-
tegrative Action, 286–87. Nadler, “Art,” 202–7. Schmaltz, “Early Dutch Reception,”
75–78.
50. Descartes, De homine, 19 and 34, figs. VI and XIII; L’ homme, 15, 28–29. Des-
cartes, Dioptrique, 30–31. Hatfield, “L’Homme in Psychology,” 273n14.
51. Descartes, Passions, 10–11. For the heartbeat see 7–8.

52. I cite the contemporary English translation of 1650, Descartes, Passions, 21; La
dioptrique, 30–32. Klestinec and Manning, “New (Old) Anatomy,” 68.
53. Peyer, Exercitatio anatomico-medica, preface to the reader. Belloni, in Malpighi,
Opere scelte, 24–25. Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism, Experiment, Disease, 155–56.
54. Ragland, “Mechanism, the Senses, and Reason.” Steno, Lecture. As I put it in
Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism, Experiment, Disease, 137: “Unlike Descartes, Malpighi was
an anatomist interested in the anatomical details, who disliked mechanistic explanations
when they were only in principle rather than in practice—even though at times he found
nothing better to fall back on” (italics added). The citation of this passage in Klestinec and
Manning, “New (Old) Anatomy,” at 68, misleadingly omits the italicized portion; on
Malpighi and nervous transmission see also below. McVaugh, “Losing Ground.”
55. Cole, “History of Anatomical Injections.” Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism, Experi-
ment, Disease , 89–91.
56. Malpighi, Risposta, in Opera posthuma (1698), 326–7; Opere scelte, 556 (my trans.).
57. Ruysch, Epistola problematica duodecima, on De cerebri cortice substantia (1699),
in Epistolae anatomicae problematicae. Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism, Experiment, Disease,
298–300.
58. Harwood, “Rhetoric.” Dennis, “Graphic Understanding.” Neri, Insect and the
Image, ch. 4, 167. Hunter, Wicked Intelligence. Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism, Experiment,
Disease, 19.
59. Hooke, Micrographia, 143–45, 163–65.
60. Gabbey, “Mechanical Philosophies,” 458. Gabbey, “Mechanical Philosophy,” 12–
17. Gabbey, “Explanatory Structures.” Roux, “From the Mechanical Philosophy,” 32–33.
61. Hooke, Micrographia, 187, 143.
63. Descartes, L’ homme, 76. Zittel, “Conflicting Pictures,” 257–59. Lüthy, “Logical
Necessity.”
64. Roberts and Tomlinson, Fabric of the Body, 309–19. Sappol, Dream Anatomy, 28,
34, attributes the engravings to Pieter Stevens van Gunst and Abraham Blooteling. Knoeff,
“Moral Lessons.” Margócsy, Commercial Visions, ch. 5. Fend, Fleshing Out Surfaces, 47–53.
65. Roberts and Tomlinson, Fabric of the Body, 309–19.
66. Belloni in Malpighi, Opere scelte, 39–40. Ruestow, Microscope, 82–83, 97n95.
Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism, Experiment, Disease, 105–29, 150–69, 300–1.
67. Bidloo, Anatomia, plate 43, fig. 6. Malpighi, Opere scelte, 170, and Tavole, in
Opere scelte, 17–18. Fend, Fleshing Out Surfaces, 49–51. The original wash drawings for
Bidloo’s Anatomia are preserved at the Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire de Santé, Paris; see
“Lairess, Bidloo et Cowper,” http://www.biusante.parisdescartes.fr/histoire/medica/lair
esse-bidloo-cowper.php. See esp. plates 10 (glands in the cerebral cortex) and 43 (renal
glomeruli).
68. Belloni, “Schemi.” Kemp, “Style.” Bertoloni Meli, “Machines.”

69. Smith, Body of the Artisan. Long, Artisan/Practitioners. Andrault, La raison, esp.
39–40.
Chapter 3: “The Very Word Mechanism”

1. In French, for example, the term became common in the eighteenth century and
though frequently used in Diderot and d’Alembert, Encyclopédie, it made only cameo
appearance among its definitions, as we will see. In Italian it became established only in
the eighteenth century: Battaglia, Grande dizionario.
2. See the Oxford English Dictionary for “mechanism,” “machine,” “mechanical,” and
the suffix “-ism.” Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism, Experiment, Disease, 12–13, 92–93, 288,
393n21. Distelzweig, “‘Mechanics’ and Mechanism,” 125.
3. Roux, “Quelles machines.” Belloni, “Schemi.” Bertoloni Meli, “Machines.” Keller,
“Drebbel’s Living Instruments.” Shackelford, Philosophical Path, 178–80, “Transplanta-
tion,” 239–42.
4. Park and Daston, Wonders, 209; see also 161, 163. For examples of a looser usage
of the term see Diderot and d’Alembert, Encyclopédie, 1:272, “Alkahest, ou Alcahest,” and
8:733, “Influence ou influxe des astres,” in relation to meteorology.
5. Willis, Causes, 43–44. On Willis see the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
entry by John H. Appleby. On the issue of art versus nature see Newman, Promethean
Ambitions.
6. Starkey, Natures Explication, 75. On Starkey there is an extensive literature but
for our purposes see the authoritative Dictionary of National Biography entry by William
Newman.
7. Urquhart, Logopandecteision (1653), 27.
8. Burnet, Discourse, 67–68.
9. Gabbey, “Henry More,” esp. 24 and, for later developments, 25. Henry, “Henry
More versus Robert Boyle,” esp. 60; see also Henry’s entry on More in Stanford Ency-
clopedia of Philosophy, last revised September 7, 2016, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/
henry-more/. Greene, “More.” Newman, “How Not to Integrate.”
10. Descartes, Passions, 22.
11. More, Immortality, 220; for the Latin, “non soli mechanismo corporis,” see More,
Opera omnia, 2:358. See also Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism, Experiment, Disease, 13.
12. Henry, “Henry More versus Robert Boyle.” As we have seen in the previous chap-
ter, Borelli adopted an intermediate position between Descartes and More in this regard.
13. The passage continues in More, Immortality, 220–21: “It is evident that [the
Phaenomena of Passions] arise in us against both our Will and Appetite. For who would
bear the tortures of Fears and Jealousies, if he could avoid it? And therefore the Soule
sends not nor determines the Spirits thus to her own Torture, as she resides in the Head.
Whence it is plain that it is the effect of her as she resides in the Heart and / Stomack,
which sympathize with the horrid representation in the Common Sensorium, by reason of
the exquisite unity of the Soul with her self, & of the continuity of Spirits in the Body, the
necessary instrument of all her Functions.” In the following section More launches into
a discussion of the weapon-salve, an ointment thought to cure a wound by being applied
to the weapon that caused it.
14. More, “The Publisher to the Reader,” in Divine Dialogues. See also pp. 32 (“pure
Mechanism”), 39 (“pure and universal Mechanism”), 41 (“pure pretended mechanism”),
and 44 (“pure Mechanism”).
15. Boyle, Free Enquiry, 312, 313–14. I cite from Boyle’s first editions; all his pub-
lications are available in Works. See also for a different though not unrelated example
Descartes, Passions, §44, related to the eye’s adjustment in relation to distance.
16. Descartes, La dioptrique, 27–28. Canguilhem, La formation, 29. Collacciani,
“Reception,” 109–10. Scheiner, Oculus, 29–52.
17. Boyle, Free Enquiry, 353. Kaplan, “Divulging of Useful Truths”.
18. Boyle, Free Enquiry, 222–23.
19. See for example Galen, On the Natural Faculties, I.13, II.8, III.13. Philosophical
Transactions, unsigned review of Pharmaceutice rationalis, 6167.
20. Cudworth, True Intellectual System, 9, 148. Andrault, “What is Life.”
21. Power, Experimental Philosophy, 5.
22. Power, Experimental Philosophy, 192–93.
23. Explicit references to “mechanism” occur in Micrographia at 9, 91, 95, 102, 134,
152, 154, 165, 170, 171, 173, and 186.
24. Hooke, Micrographia, 104, on bellows as a contrivance; quotation at 134. See
also 170, on the feet of flies: “Their suspension therefore is wholly to be ascrib’d to some
Mechanical contrivance in their feet.”
26. Hooke, Micrographia, 91. Hunter, Wicked Intelligence, 49–50.
27. Hooke Micrographia, 95. Hull, “Robert Hooke.”
28. Hooke, Micrographia, 102, 91. The snowflake is discussed in chapter four.
30. Hooke, Micrographia, 167; the whole passage reads: “But Nature, that knows best
its own laws, and the several properties of bodies, knows also best how to adapt and fit
them to her designed ends, and whoso would know those properties, must endeavour to
trace Nature in its working, and to see what course she observes. And this I suppose will
be no inconsiderable advantage which the Schematisms and Structures of Animate bod-
ies will afford the diligent enquirer, namely, most sure and excellent instructions, both as
to the practical part of Mechanicks and to the Theory and knowledge of the nature of the
bodies and motions.” Galen, On the Usefulness, book 17.
31. Hooke, Micrographia, 171–72. The relevant passage reads: “And to conclude, we
shall in all things find, that Nature does not onely work Mechanically, but by such ex-
cellent and most compendious, as well as stupendious contrivances, that it were impos-
sible for all the reason in the world to find out any contrivance to do the same thing that
should have more convenient properties. And can any be so sottish, / as to think all those
things the productions of chance? Certainly, either their Ratiocination must be extremely
depraved, or they did never attentively consider and contemplate the Works of the Al-
mighty.” Stillingfleet, Origines, 401. Lennox, “Robert Boyle’s Defense.”
32. Hooke, Micrographia, 173. Edgerton, Heritage of Giotto’s Geometry, 1–4.
33. Hooke, Micrographia, 173. Bertoloni Meli, “Machines,” 96.
34. These matters are discussed in Andrault, La raison. Hooke, Micrographia, 151–52.
35. Hooke, Micrographia, 12. See chapter two.
36. Hooke, Lectiones cutlerianae, 103; see also Micrographia, 134.
37. Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 63.
38. [Oldenburg], review of De viscerum structura, 890. Malpighi, De viscerum structu-
ra, 95. Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism, Experiment, Disease, 121–24.
39. Hooke, Micrographia, 140, referring to seaweed.
40. Grew, Anatomy of Plants, 188–89. Grew, De potentia, plate. On Grew’s later views
see Garrett, “Vitalism.” Andrault, “What is Life.” In Musæum, when describing the “river-
whale,” Grew draws a parallel between animal and artificial structures: “The Cartilage, as
the spring in a Pendulum Watch, to stint the motion and make it more steady” (103–4).
41. Machamer, Darden, and Craver, “Thinking about Mechanisms,” 12, 21–22, quo-
tation at 22. Craver and Darden, In Search of Mechanisms, 38–39. Dear, Intelligibility of
Nature, ch. 1, esp. 31–32.
42. Glanvill, Vanity of Dogmatizing, 24–25. For other occurrences of the term mecha-
nism see 7, 41, 111, 207, and contents, under chapter V.
43. Sprat, History, 312. The immediately preceding passage, at 311–12, reads: “The first
instance I shall mention, to which he may lay peculiar claim, is the Doctrine of Motion,
which is the most considerable of all others, for establishing the first Principles of Philosophy,
by Geometrical Demonstrations. This Des Cartes had before begun, having taken up some Ex-
periments of this kind, upon Conjecture, and made them the first Foundation of his whole
Systeme of Nature: But some of his Conclusions seeming very questionable, because they were
only deriv’d from the gross Trials of Balls / meeting one another at Tennis, and Billiards.”
44. Jacob, Henry Stubbe, ch. 5. Syfret, “Some Early Critics.” In Legends no histo-
ries (1670), Stubbe challenged Sprat and Glanvill. In A Prefatory Matter to Mr. Henry
Stubbe (1671), Glanvill included a letter by More at 154–58; More attacks “mere Mecha-
nism” on 155. See also 151–52.
45. Henry Stubbe, Reply, 66. Jacob, Henry Stubbe. Cook, “Physicians.” On Stubbe see
the entry in the Dictionary of National Biography by Mordechai Feingold.
46. On Charleton see the Dictionary of National Biography entry by John Henry.
Booth, Subtle and Mysterious Machine, ch. 7. Borelli, De motu animalium, part II, chapter
6. Charleton, Three Anatomical Lectures, 37, 95, quotation at 69.
47. Charleton, Three Anatomical Lectures, 72.

48. Charleton, Three Anatomical Lectures, 90.
49. Charleton, Three Anatomical Lectures, 84–86.
50. Charleton, Three Anatomical Lectures, 95–96.
51. Tyson, Phocaena, 6. Tyson’s comparison does not necessarily imply that he held
mechanistic views in general. On Tyson see the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
entry by Anita Guerrini. Moxham, “Edward Tyson’s Phocaena,” esp. 251n38. Hunter,
Wicked Intelligence, 118–19. The porpoise, or phocoena, is a delphinoid.
52. Tyson, Phocaena, 16, 46.
53. Tyson, Phocaena, 2, quoted in Guerrini, Courtiers’ Anatomists, 242. Tyson,
Ephemeri vita, 2. Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism, Experiment, Disease, 13.
54. Tyson, Carigueya, 15 (see also 30 and 50). Cole, History of Comparative Anatomy,
215–17. Charleton, Three Anatomical Lectures, 37.
55. Tyson, Carigueya, 30. Bertoloni Meli, “Of Snails and Horsetails.”
56. Gott, Divine History, 340; see also 304, where Gott refers to mechanism in rela-
tion to the microscope. The work was reviewed anonymously in the Philosophical Trans-
actions. Gott was a friend and correspondent of mathematician John Wallis: see Wallis,
Correspondence, 3:3–6. Schmidgen, Exquisite Mixture, 53–56. On Gott see Morrish,
“Virtue and Genre,” 248–51. See also “GOTT, Samuel (1614-71), of Battle, Suss.,” from
The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1660–1690, ed. B. D. Henning (Lon-
don: Secker & Warburg, 1983), available at http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/
volume/1660-1690/member/gott-samuel-1614-71.
57. Gott, Divine History, 145. Cheung, “What Is an ‘Organism,’” 157. Gott’s work
predates the first occurrence (by Grew) reported in the Oxford English Dictionary by
thirty years; see “organism,” “organical,” and “-ism” as a suffix.
58. Gott, Divine History, 358, as part of a discussion of the heartbeat; 148. Plastic
virtues or powers are discussed in chapter four.
59. Gott, Divine History, 370. At 461–62 Gott praises man’s “Body, which is of an
Erect and Sublime Stature, and of a more Excellent Temper and Organism, especialy his
Hands, whereby he can Use and Manage any other Instruments farr otherwise, and to
more advantage, then they.” At 346 he claims that Gott also states that plants can live
and reproduce from a twig or branch, which retains “a sufficient Portion of their Divisible
Spirit,” but if animals have the organism of their principal parts destroyed, meaning their
head, heart, etc., they cannot live.
60. Grew, Cosmologia Sacra, 18.
61. Cheung, “From the Organism of a Body”; “Regulating Agents”; “What Is an ‘Or-
ganism,’” esp. 158–62. Andrault, “Entre anatomie et théologie.” Later also John Evelyn
used the same term in Silva, Or a Discourse of Forest-Trees and the Propagation of Timber
(1706).
62. Grew, Cosmologia Sacra, 33–34, quotation at 34. Garrett, “Vitalism.” Andrault,
“What Is Life?” For Grew’s earlier views on mixtures see Schmidgen, Exquisite Mixture,
52–53.
63. Grew, Cosmologia Sacra, 57.
64. Duchesneau, “Organism-Mechanism”; “Leibniz versus Stahl.” Geyer-Kordesch,
“Georg Ernst Stahl’s Radical Pietist Medicine.” Chang, “Motus Tonicus.” De Ceglia, I
fari di Halle.
65. Hoffmann and Cellarius, Dissertatio inauguralis physico-medica, §5 (pages are not
numbered): “Est itaque nobis mechanismus, effectus quidam seu motus vel operatio corpo-
ris, ex causa physica semper & necessario talem effectum producente dependens; unde qui-
cunque effectus mechanice fiunt sive per mechanismum, perficiuntur causis necessariis i.e.
non alia ratione agentibus vel agree aptis . . . quando autem plures materiales causae ita co-
ordinatae ac dispositae sunt, ut effectus fluant, ideae artificis, qui certum finem propositum
habeat correspondents, dicitur etiam mechanismus, sed perfectior, & a nonnullis organis-
mus, quoniam in organicis corporibus existit.” Duchesneau, “Organism-Mechanism,” 101.
66. Stahl, Disquisitio, repr. in the opening of Theoria. Duchesneau, “G. E. Stahl,”
esp. 8, 19; “Organism-Mechanism,” 98, 105–7. Cheung, “What Is an ‘Organism,’” 166–
69. De Ceglia, I fari di Halle, ch. 2. Duchesneau and Smith, introduction to Leibniz,
Leibniz-Stahl Controversy, esp. xxvi–xxxviii and liii–lxii. Diderot and d’Alembert, Ency-
clopédie, 16:137. Martin’s claim in “Nosology” that Sauvages would not be different from
contemporary “vitalists” is misleading, because Sauvages emphasized the role of the soul
in a way that most contemporaries did not. Williams, Cultural History, 80–111.
67. I have minimally altered the translation by Duchesneau and Smith in Leibniz,
Leibniz-Stahl Controversy, 67. See also their introduction, xxxv, lv, lvii.
68. [D’Ortous de Mairan], Éloge, 200: “Le Méchanisme, comme cause immediate
de tous les phénomènes de la Nature, est devenu dans ces dernier temps le signe distinctif
des Cartésiens.” Aiton, Vortex Theory, 209–14.
69. Bordeu, Recherches anatomiques, 6–8, 511–12. Roger, Les sciences de la vie (French
ed.), 618–30, esp. 618–25.
70. Bordeu, Recherches anatomiques, 350, 367, 370–75. Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism,
Experiment, Disease, 112–13.
71. Bordeu, Recherches anatomiques, 373n. Williams, Cultural History, 154–60.
72. Bordeu, Recherches anatomiques, 379–83. Ratcliff, Quest for the Invisible, ch. 5.
Rey, Naissance. Williams, Cultural History.
73. Encyclopédie, 10:226: “MÉCHANISME: se dit de la maniere dont quelque cause
méchanique produit son effet; ainsi on dit le méchanisme d’une montre, le méchanisme du
corps humain.”
74. The four occurrences of “organisme” are in the entries on “fibre,” “galenisme,”
and “nutrition” (twice).
75. Diderot and d’Alembert, Encyclopédie, 8:713.

76. Diderot and d’Alembert, Encyclopédie, 6:365–71, at 367. Roger, Les sciences de la
vie (French ed.), 636n265. Rey, Naissance, 115–22, at 118. Williams, Cultural History,
122.
Chapter 4: Mechanisms as Investigative Projects

1. Belloni, “Schemi.” French, William Harvey’s Natural Philosophy, 348–71. Bertoloni
Meli, “Machines of the Body.” See also Berryman, “Ancient Automata.”
2. I refer in particular to Adelmann, Marcello Malpighi, and Malpighi, Opere scelte,
217–83. On plastic powers and forces see Hirai, Medical Humanism. Inglehart, “Boyle.”
3. Harvey, Anatomical Exercitations, 51. Lennox, “Comparative Study.” Ekholm,
“Harvey’s and Highmore’s Accounts,” 593–94.
4. Harvey, Anatomical Exercitations, 467, exercitation LXXII. This passage echoes a
previous one on 51–52. In the editio princeps of De generatione there is an error in num-
bering, exercitation 4 being repeated; later editions correct the error and the numbering
of the exercitations is shifted by one.
5. Harvey, Anatomical Exercitations, 467–68; see also 223–29. Lüthy, “Atomism,”
esp. 6–17. Newman, Atoms and Alchemy, 27–28.
6. Degli Aromatari, Disputatio, preliminary epistola. On Aromatari see the entry by Gi-
useppe Asor Rosa in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (1961–). Malpighi, Opere scelte, 226,
223. Harvey, Anatomical Exercitations, 57. Roe, Matter, Life, and Generation, ch. 1. Roger,
Life-Sciences. Detlefsen, “Biology and Theology.” Adelmann, Marcello Malpighi, 944–45.
7. Adelmann, Marcello Malpighi, 934–35; I rely on my own translation.
8. Andrault, “Machine Analogy,” 112 and n65.
9. Adelmann, Marcello Malpighi, 957. Malpighi, Opere scelte, 236. I follow Belloni in
interpreting Malpighi as arguing that the chick, not the colliquament, “results from the
integration of mingled nutritive and fermentative juices.” Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism,
Experiment, Disease, 229–30.
10. Malpighi, De renibus, in Opera omnia, 1697, 2:287–88. Malpighi, Opere scelte,
183. Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism, Experiment, Disease, 282–89, 393–94n21.
11. Malpighi, Risposta to Sbaraglia, in Opera posthuma, 313–14; Opere scelte, 540.
12. Ekholm, “Fabricius’s and Harvey’s Representations.” Cobb, “Malpighi, Swam-
merdam and the Colourful Silkworm.”
13. Malpighi, Opera omnia (1687), De formatione pulli in ovo, separate pagina-
tion, 2:2. Harvey, Anatomical Exercitations, 62–63, 303–4. Ekholm, “Harvey’s and
Highmore’s Accounts,” 601.
14. Inglehart, “Boyle,” 313.
15. Malpighi, Opera omnia (1687), 2:217: “Dimissis languentibus Naturae erroribus
plasticae virtutis officina contemplemur.” In Malpighi, Opere scelte, 301, Belloni trans-
lates the adjective plastica into Italian as formatrice, or “forming.”
16. Malpighi, Opera omnia (1687), 2:225: “& ita per plures dies plastica illa vis con-
servatur, & subsequentibus diebus excurrentibus ovis communicatur.”
17. Malpighi, Opera omnia (1687), 2:225: The second passage: “Natura in gallinaceis
non soli cicatrici, in qua partium rudimenta latent, galli semen, vel aliud menstruum ab
eodem fœcundatum aspergit & affundit, sed totum ovum, alimentum scilicet sub specie
albuminis & vitelli vi plastica irrorat ita, ut totum fœcundetur.” Malpighi, Opere scelte,
317–18. Adelmann, Marcello Malpighi, 861–62.
18. Malpighi, Opera omnia (1687), 2:224–25. Adelmann, Marcello Malpighi, 859.
Malpighi, Opere scelte, 316–17. Catherine Wilson follows Adelmann in Invisible World,
128. On de Graaf see Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism, Experiment, Disease, 222–23. Lennox,
“Comparative Study.” Ekholm, “Harvey’s and Highmore’s Accounts,” at 594–95. See
also Borelli, De motu animalium, 379.
19. Adelmann, Marcello Malpighi, 866n12, 1162.
20. Borelli, De motu animalium, 2:370–71; I find Macquet’s translation of “oculata”
as “hidden” unconvincing (English trans. 390).
21. Borelli, De motu animalium, 2:379. Further references to “plastic virtue” and
“force” can be found in De motu animalium, 2:318, 2:385, 2:412.
22. The heading of proposition 186 seems incoherent to me: “Conjectatio modi
mechanici fœcundationis ovi, & quare id non expergiscitur, nisi excitetur a fœtu, vel
impulsu externo.” Here “fœtu” seems to be a misreading for “semine,” and indeed in the
text Borelli discusses at length the role of male semen in the fecundation of the egg—
something that cannot be due to the fetus.
23. Harvey, Anatomical Exercitations, 539–40. Borelli, De motu animalium, 387–90.
24. Hooke Micrographia, 88.
26. Hooke, Micrographia, 87–88.
27. Hooke, Micrographia, 90–91. Hunter, Wicked Intelligence, 5–6.
28. Hooke, Micrographia, 91–92. Starkey, Alchemical Laboratory Notebooks, 344. New-
man and Principe, Alchemy, 266. Hunter, Wicked Intelligence, 49–50.
29. Hooke, Micrographia, 85–86 and schema VII. Schneer, “Kepler’s New Year’s Gift.”
30. Boyle, An Account of Freezing made in December and January, 1662, in Cold, sepa-
rate pagination, 19. Boyle goes on (19–20) to question the experiment on the recreation of
nettles by freezing reported by Quercetanus; Newman, Promethean Ambitions, 228–29.
Hooke further mentions the “Plastick virtue” at 110–12, where he denies that it played a
role in the formation process of fossils. Hunter, Boyle, 118–19, 145–46. Christopoulou,
“Early Modern History of Cold.”
31. Boyle, Origine of Forms and Qualities, 112, quotation at 116–17; the relevant
section is at 109–20. Inglehart, “Boyle.” Hirai, Medical Humanism and “Invisible Hand.”
Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism, Experiment, Disease, 231–32. Malpighi was made aware of
the 1669 Oxford Latin translation of Boyle’s Origine of Forms and Qualities, Origo for-
marum et qualitatum juxta philosophiam corpuscularem, in a letter from Oldenburg of July

25, 1670, in Malpighi, Correspondence, 2:467–69, at 468n11. The interpretation of Boyle
is controversial: Anstey, “Boyle on Seminal Principles.” Newman, Atoms and Alchemy,
158n5, 215n43. Inglehart, “Boyle” and “Seminal Ideas.”
32. Boyle, Origine of Forms and Qualities, 110–16. Inglehart, “Seminal Ideas,” §2.8.
33. Harvey, Anatomical Exercitations, 467; see also 51–52. Boyle, Origine of Forms
and Qualities, 109. Boyle, Certain Physiological Essays, 87–88. Ekholm, “Harvey’s and
Highmore’s Accounts,” 571, 591, 596–97. Inglehart, “Boyle,” 309.
34. Boyle, Origine of Forms and Qualities, 221–22. See also Boyle, Essay, 54–55.
35. Boyle, Works, 13:286–88, at 288.
36. Boyle, Origine of Forms and Qualities, 190–95.
37. Boyle, “Of the Excellency and Grounds of the Corpuscular or Mechanical Phi-
losophy,” in Excellency of Theology, separate pagination, 19, 21–22. A Latin edition of the
relevant tract appeared in 1674. I am grateful to Sophie Roux for having brought this
passage to my attention.
38. Boyle, Free Enquiry, 354.
39. The sources cited here by no means exhaust the growing literature on these mat-
ters; Clericuzio, “Redefinition” and “Gassendi”; Anstey, “Boyle on Seminal Principles.”
Newman, Atoms and Alchemy, 158n5, 215n43. Inglehart, “Boyle,” 302–3.
40. Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism, Experiment, Disease, 276–80, 307–11.
41. Malpighi, Vita, in Opera posthuma; I refer to the Amsterdam 1698 edition, which
is more accurate than the English one of the previous year: “Quapropter Naturæ insti-
tutum videtur, omnia ex fluido tanquam prima materia, singula excitare, hac tamen
ratione, ut solidiori materia delineatis veluti tot præsepibus & alveolis partium delin-
eamenta & extimos fines describant. Quinino partium delineandarum inchoamenta
utriculis & sacculis membranosis inchoat, quorum poris, quasi tot glandularum cribris,
separat determinatum fluidum ab eo, in quo innatat, & ita custoditum plastico spiritu
pervaditur & organizatur, transpiratis incongruis, & facta debita suarum partium ad-
aptatione” (109). I have modified the translation in Adelmann, Marcello Malpighi, 866
and 1169–70.
42. Malpighi, Vita, in Opera posthuma, 109–10. Grondona, “L’esercitazione,” at 461.
43. Malpighi, Vita, in Opera posthuma, 118–22, esp. 118–20. Adelmann, Marcello
Malpighi, 886 and n2. Malpighi, Correspondence, 4:1659–64, Torti to Malpighi, Mode-
na, 25 January 1691; Malpighi to Torti, 28 January 1691; Torti to Malpighi, 5 February
1691; the relevant passage is at 1662 and n2. Bernardi, Le metafisiche, 92, reports the
relevant passage, but I disagree with his translation of Malpighi’s memorandum.
44. Malpighi, “De polypo cordis. An Annotated Translation.” Malpighi, Vita, in Opera
posthuma, 119–20. Ferrari, Hesperides, 263–87, at 269 and 271. Bertoloni Meli, “Blood,
Monsters, and Necessity”; Mechanism, Experiment, Disease, ch. 9. Harvey, Anatomical
Exercitations, 50–51.
45. Marcello Malpighi, Bologna University Library, ms 936 I K, cc. 36–37, the repro-
duced sketch is at 37; see also ms 936 II B, cc. 15r.-16v.
46. Malpighi, Vita, in Opera posthuma, 118–19. See also Università di Bologna, ms
936 II, Fasc. A, c. 15a.
47. Malpighi, Vita, in Opera posthuma, 120.
48. Malpighi, Vita, in Opera posthuma, 121.
49. Malpighi, Vita, in Opera posthuma, both quotations are at 121: “In generatione
tot ovorum necessario requiri copiam fluidi, quod debet esse heterogeneum, variis scilicet
particulis congestum, quarum aliquæ plus, aliæ minus graves sunt, aliæ rarescentes, aliæ
magis pronæ ad concretionem.” Inglehart has recently shed much new light on these
matters in her doctoral dissertation, “Seminal Ideas.”
50. Malpighi, Vita, in Opera posthuma, 118–22, esp. 121–22. Bertoloni Meli, Mech-
anism, Experiment, Disease, 135–38, 143–45, 250, 293–95.
51. Malpighi, Vita, in Opera posthuma, 121: “Succedunt autem in prima gagatis pro-
duction tot ova, non quia lapides ab ovo viventium more ortum necessario trahant, sed
materiæ necessitate.” Aristotle, Opere biologiche, 642a (569–71). Bertoloni Meli, “Blood,
Monsters, and Necessity,” 516–21; Mechanism, Experiment, Disease, 130–38, 143–45,
293–95.
52. Malpighi, Vita, in Opera posthuma: “quasi tot involucra sese contingentia ce-
parum instar manifestantur”; “In hoc tandem ovo alia minima, haecque copiosa inclu-
duntur, quae ceparum more suis involucris distincta tot ovula graphice epraesentant”;
“Fiunt igitur quasi tot involucra ceparum instar, seu plani ex solidiori & opaca quadam
materia ob fossilium copiam, quae probabiliter postremo concrescit” (121).
53. Malpighi, Risposta, in Opera posthuma, 282. Malpighi, Opere scelte, 504.
54. Malpighi, Risposta, in Opera posthuma, 321; “Cum animantium corpora merae
videantur machinæ, seu automata, . . .” I have slightly modified the translation in Opere
scelte, 549.
55. Malpighi, Opere scelte, 516. Duchesneau, “Malpighi, Descartes,” 116. Giglioni,
“Machines of the Body,” 166. Bertoloni Meli, “Mechanistic Pathology.” On Malpighi’s
references to machines used in pathology see Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism, Experiment,
Disease, 315–19.
56. Malpighi, Risposta, in Opera posthuma, 292; Opere scelte, 516.
57. Malpighi, Risposta, in Opera posthuma, 292; Opere scelte, 516.
58. Malpighi, Risposta, in Opera posthuma, 292; Opere scelte, 516. Sbaraglia, Oculo-
rum et mentis vigiliae, 252–54.
59. Harvey, Anatomical Exercitations, quotation at 206, 256, 539–66. Harvey com-
pares further conception to the action of the magnet and draws a parallel between the
brain and the uterus. Ekholm, “Harvey’s and Highmore’s Accounts,” 593–94.
60. Malpighi, Risposta, in Opera posthuma, 313; Opere scelte, 539–40, quotation at
540. Pagel, Joan Baptista van Helmont, 141–98. Giglioni, Immaginazione e malattia.
61. Malpighi, Opere scelte, 135. Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism, Experiment, Disease, 290.
Mini’s main work was Medicus igne. Sbaraglia, Oculorum et mentis vigiliae, 326.
62. Albertini, “Animadversiones,” 332b. Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism, Experiment,
Disease, 338–44.
63. Sbaraglia, Oculorum et mentis vigiliae, 252–54. Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism, Ex-
periment, Disease, 324.
64. Mini, Medicus igne, 2–3, 6–7, 29, 45, 139.
65. Malpighi, Vita, in Opera posthuma, 55, 135. Giglioni, “Machines of the Body,”
167–70. Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism, Experiment, Disease, 292–95. For “actus secundus”
see New Catholic Encyclopedia (Detroit: Gale, 2003), under “act.” Galen, On the Natural
Faculties, I.4.
66. Malpighi, Risposta, 305; Opere scelte, 530–31. Malpighi, Correspondence, 3:1226–
30, Malpighi to Bellini, 3 and 10 December 1686. Giglioni, “Machines of the Body,”
169–70.
1. Machamer, Darden, Craver, “Thinking about Mechanisms,” 14.
2. Garber and Roux, “Introduction,” esp. xi–xii. Roux, “From the Mechanical Phi-
losophy,” esp. 27–28. Hattab, “Mechanical Philosophy.”
3. This is the topic of Bertoloni Meli, Thinking with Objects. Bennett, “Mechanics’
Philosophy”; Gauvin, “Instruments.”
4. Kassler, “Man.”
5. This account differs from that provided in Craver and Darden, Mechanisms, ch.
8, which highlights substantive changes in the way experiments on mechanisms were
performed over time.
6. Daston, “Empire.”
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Index
Adelmann, Howard B., 116–17, 137 Belloni, Luigi, 74–75

affections, mechanical, 18–20 Benedetti, Alessandro, 46
agent, 4, 19, 20, 100, 105, 110, 117, Berryman, Sylvia, 13
122–24, 132, 133 Bichat, Xavier, 5–7
Agricola, Georgius, 29, 31, 35 Bidloo, Govert, 26, 72, 74—Biringuccio,
Alberti, Leon Battista, 27–28 Vannoccio, 31
Albertini, Ippolito Francesco, 135 Böckler, Georg Andreas, 55–56
Andrault, Raphaële, 112 Boerhaave, Herman, 106
archeus, 80, 134–35 Boissier de Sauvages, François, 105
Aristotle, 6, 8, 14, 15, 98, 117, 120, 123, Bologna, xii, 125, 128
140 Bonfiglioli, Francesco, 131
Aristotelian philosophy/doctrine, 5, 84 Borelli, Giovanni Alfonso, xii, 9, 60, 99,
art/artifice, 7, 12, 46 110, 116–19, 125–26, 132, 137, 141
artificium mechanicum, 79, 118 Bouillet, Jean, 107
art-nature, 4, 20, 89, 94 Boyle, Robert, ix-xii, 5, 9, 16, 35, 67,
Asclepiades of Bithynia, 11 82–85, 106, 110, 116, 118–20,
Aselli, Gasparo, 51, 59 122–25, 131–36, 139, 141; Excellency
atom/atomism, 9, 13, 85, 110, 122 of Theology, 20, 124, 133; Origine
atomist, 11, 111 of Formes and Qualities, 18–19, 22,
attraction, 10, 12–13, 50, 52, 76; selective, 122–24, 133
13, 40, 41, 84 Brahe, Tycho, 35
automaton/automata, 22, 32, 101, 118, Britain, xi, 79, 122
124, 132 Brunelleschi, Filippo, 27–28
Burnet, Gilbert, 81
Bacon, Francis, 32–33 Bylebyl, Jerome J., 50
Bartholin, Thomas, 52, 60
Bechtel, William, 5–7, 98, 139 cadaver, 10, 12–13, 48, 116, 136, 141
Bellini, Lorenzo, 126, 136 Cambridge, ix, 81, 84
183
184 Index
camera obscura, 58–59, 140 Descartes, René, ix, 5, 8, 17, 22–4, 32–33,
Chambers, Ephraim, 25 57–69, 74, 79, 80, 81–83, 92, 96,
Charleton, Walter, 98–100, 108 108, 123, 141
Charles V, 35 Des Chene, Dennis, 23
chemical phenomena/processes, 4, 7, 99, Detlefsen, Karen, 21–22
104, 110, 113, 117, 125–26, 132, 137 Diderot, Denis, xi, 105, 106
chemistry/chymistry, 8, 9, 17, 28, 113 Distelzweig, Peter, 10
chiaroscuro, 27–28, 32 divine (or theologian), ix, xi, 81, 89, 96,
Clerselier, Claude, 60, 63 108, 124, 139
clock, 17–20, 22, 36, 57, 86, 98, 104, d’Ortous de Marain, Jean-Jacques, 106
107,113, 118, 133–34, 137 Drebbel, Cornelis, 16
collision, 18, 97 Dryander, Johannes, 39
color, 85–86, 122–23, 128 Duchesneau, Francois, 133
component, 5–7, 17–18, 21–22, 31, 37,
54, 77, 85, 95–96, 99–101, 112–13, Edgerton, David, xi, 28, 31–33, 37
118, 119–20; fluid, 126, 131, 137–38 elasticity, 10, 17–19, 53, 82, 109
contrivance, 18–20, 22, 71, 79, 85–86, Elkins, James, 28
89, 92, 100–101, 123–25, 139. See Empedocles, 110–11
also mechanism Encyclopédie, xi, 105–7
corpuscular philosophy, 9, 19, 85, 111, engine, 17, 19, 85, 99, 103, 122–24
123, 125 engineer, 10, 28, 31–32, 35, 51
Craver, Carl, ix, 4, 96 Epicureans, 110, 123
Ctesibius, 10, 51 Epicurus, 111
Cudworth, Ralph, 84–85, 104 epigenesis, 111
Erasistratus, 10–13, 21, 51, 99
Dackerman, Susan, 27 experiment, 10, 12, 15, 19, 20, 48, 52,
D’Alembert, Jean le Rond, xi, 105, 106 82, 141
Darden, Lindley, ix, 4, 96
Davia, Antonio Francesco, 116 Fabricius, Hieronymus, 46–48, 50, 52,
Dear, Peter, 7 114, 117
de Bordeu, Théophile, 106 faculty, ix, x, 4, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14–15,
de Caus, Salomon, 35, 57 21–23, 60, 77, 84, 94, 107, 125, 136,
Dechales, Claude François Milliet, 18 137; pulsative, 5, 10, 136
degli Aromatari, Giuseppe, 111 fecundation, xi, 109–12, 114, 116–18,
de Graaf, Regnier, 117 125–26
de Ketham, Johannes, 38 ferment, 8, 118
de la Forge, Louis, 60 fermentation, 23, 113, 116, 131
de Lairesse, Gerard, 74, 75 Ferrari, Giovanni Battista, 128
Delft, 117 filter, 39, 41, 136
Democritus, 110–11 filtration, 7, 9, 12, 94, 126
Index 185
fountain, 18, 55–56, 57 125, 137, 139–41; Micrographia,

Francesco di Giorgio Martini, 28, 31, 33 19–22, 25, 70–73, 85–92, 118–22; De
Fromondus, Libertus, ix potentia restitutiva, 17–18, 95
horror vacui, 12, 13
Gabbey, Alan, 70 Hutchins, Barnaby, 17
Galen, x, 3, 6, 8, 10–16, 23, 89, 117, 118, Huygens, Christiaan, 17, 33, 35–37, 139
135, 141 hygroscope, 91–92, 107
Galilei, Galileo, 4, 28, 31–33, 35
Garber, Daniel, 10, 19, 140 Inglehart, Ashley, 116, 125
Gassendi, Pierre, 122 Innocent XII, 125
generation, xi, 4, 9, 21, 50, 97, 102, instrument, ix, 15, 20, 21, 27, 35, 37–38,
109–12, 116–18, 122–25, 128, 131, 83, 89, 91, 97, 102, 105, 114, 136;
134, 137, 142 musical, 60, 136, 141
genesis, 11, 14. See also generation intelligibility, 95–96, 100, 123, 140
gland, 21, 67, 68–69, 74–75, 94, 106,
135–36, 142 Keller, Vera, 16, 80
Glanvill, Joseph, 96–98, 108, 139 Kemp, Martin, 28
glomerulus, 7, 67, 93–94 Kepler, Johannes, 35–36
Gott, Samuel, 102–3 Keyser, Konrad, 35
Grew, Nehemiah, 95–96, 100, 103–4, kidney, 7, 9, 10, 12, 21, 39–41, 67,
108, 140 74–77, 93, 109, 113, 116, 126, 140
growth, 11–12, 14, 21, 112, 114 Klestinec, Cynthia, 63
Guido da Vigevano, 35 Kusukawa, Sachiko, 38
Halifax, 85 law, 5, 9, 20, 89, 117, 123, 132

Halle, 79, 104, 106 lawlike explanations, 4, 8
Harcourt, Glenn, 39 Lefèvre, Wolfgang, 33
Harriot, Thomas, 28 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 23, 105
Harvey, William, xii, 5, 10, 11, 12, 26, Leiden, 51, 106
32–33, 48–50, 52, 59, 60, 76–77, 80, Leonardo da Vinci, 17, 33, 42, 48
117, 140, 141; Generation of Animals, level (of mechanistic explanation), 4, 6,
110–11, 114, 118, 123–25, 128, 17, 20–22, 26, 85–86, 139
133–34 life, ix, 4, 6, 7, 13, 15, 17, 85, 87, 101,
Hattab, Helen, ix 103–4, 107
Heron of Alexandria, 31 ligature, 12, 48–52, 60, 77, 140–41
Hesse, Mary, 8 local/global accounts, x, 8, 10–11
Hippocrates, 110 Locke, John, 93
Hoffmann, Friedrich, 104–5 London, 79, 100
Hooke, Robert, xi, xii, 5, 9, 25, 67, 69, Long, Pamela, 33, 77
76–78, 92–96, 98, 100, 107–8, 110, Louis XIV, 36
186 Index
Louvain, ix, 60, 83 More, Henry, ix, xi, 16, 19, 81–85,
Lower, Richard, 54, 141 96–98, 107, 108, 139
Lynceus/Linceus, 110–11 motion, ix, 7, 9, 16–17, 19–24, 80, 85–86,
Lyon, 116 96–104, 114, 116–19, 122–23,
lyre, 68–69, 141 131–33, 136, 138, 140; fortuitous,
85, 89; local, 102, 111, 122–24, 134;
Machamer, Peter, ix, 4, 96 muscular, 25, 60–62, 92–93
machine, ix, x, xi, 8, 32–33, 79, 82, 98,
99, 118, 119, 126, 133, 137, 140; hu- necessity: mathematical, 35; mechanical,
man made/artificial, 5–7, 14; human 60, 85, 117, 141; of matter (necessitas
versus divine, 4, 5, 22–3, 104 materiae), 132
magnet, 13, 16, 110, 118 Newton, Isaac, 33
magnitude, 17, 21, 97. See also size Nuremberg, 55
Mahoney, Michael, xi, 32–33, 35, 37 nutrition, 12, 14, 21, 84, 89, 106, 126
Malebranche, Nicholas, 112, 128, 131
Malpighi, Marcello, xi-xii, 11, 20–21, Oldenburg, Henry, 19, 93
26, 67–70, 74–78, 93–94, 106, organ (musical instrument), 57, 141
108, 122, 133–38, 140–41; and organism, xi, 3, 79, 102–5, 107, 108
generation, 109–19, 125–33; and Oxford, 54
the uniformity of nature, 65, 101,
128, 140 Padua, 35
Manning, Gideon, 63 Panofsky, Erwin, 28
matter, living, 8, 14, 132 Paracelsus, 79
McGee, David, 31–32 Paris, 38, 39
mechanical philosophy, ix-x, 3, 4, 79, 82, particle active/volatile, 8, 23, 116–17
97, 140–42 Pecquet, Jean, 10, 17, 52–53, 59, 76, 77
mechanism: defined, 4–7, 21–22, 98, pendulum, 78, 90–91, 107, 109, 133, 141;
139; mere/pure, 82–83, 97–98, 108, clock, 17–18, 36–37, 118, 139
139; as a project, x, 8, 23, 110, 134, perception, 14, 21, 28, 65, 67, 83, 93,
138, 142. See also contrivance 109
mechanistic program, 4, 6, 9, 11, 16, 21, perspective, 27–33, 35, 37–38
67, 85, 94, 113, 134, 37 Peyer, Johann Conrad, 67
microscope, xi-xii, 7, 21, 74, 70, 77, 85, Pirroni, Carlo Giovanni, 116
87, 91, 93, 109, 119–20, 132, 140 plastic power/virtue/etc., 9, 21, 23, 84, 87,
microscopy, 67, 69, 78, 90, 108, 111, 142 102–3, 110, 116–20, 122–26, 128,
mill, 22, 46, 57, 98, 124, 133–5 131–34, 137
Mini, Paolo, 125, 135–36, 141 Plato, 15–16, 101
Modena, 125, 128 Plemp, Vopiscus Fortunatus, 83
Montpellier, 79, 105, 106 Power, Henry, 85–86
Index 187
principle: active, 8, 81; hylarchic, 19–20, Sprat, Thomas, 96–98

82; immaterial, 9, 103–4; seminal, 9, spring, 16–18, 20, 37, 95, 101, 104, 107,
23, 120, 123–24, 137 109, 141
Privat de Molières, Joseph, 106 Stahl, Georg Ernst, 104–6
pupil (of the eye), 83, 106, 141 Starkey, George, 80
Steno, Nicolaus, 5–6, 100, 106, 131
qualities, occult, 21, 95, 119 Stillingfleet, Edward, 89
Stubbe, Henry, xi, 96–98, 107, 139
Ragland, Evan, 67 suspension of judgment, x, 8, 9, 11, 16,
Ramelli, Agostino, 31–32, 35 23, 87, 106
Rome, 116, 125 Swammerdam, Jan, 112, 128, 131
Roux, Sophie, 140 Sydenham, Thomas, 135
Ruysch, Frederik, 53–54, 69, 77, 141 Sylvius, Jacobu,s 38
syringe, 54, 70, 76, 78, 140
Saumur, 60
Sbaraglia, Giovanni Girolamo, 11, 125, Taccola (Mariano di Jacopo), 28
132, 134–36 Tartaglia, Niccolò, 35
Scheiner, Christoph, 58–59, 83 technician, 31–32, 46, 77
Schuyl, Florentius, 60–63, 74 teleology, 5, 6, 8, 11, 86, 89, 105, 108,
secretion, 21, 106 139
semipermeability, 109, 137 texture, 9, 19–21, 38, 87, 102, 122, 140
sensation, 14–15, 59, 61–62, 64, 70, Torti, Francesco, 128
92–93, 103 Trembley, Abraham, 106
Severinus, Petrus, 79 Tyson, Edward, xi, 100–101, 108, 140
Shackelford, Jole, 79
shape, ix, 16–17, 19, 24, 70, 86, 96, 114, Ufano, Diego, 35
117, 122, 123, 140, 141 Urquhart, Thomas, 81
size, ix, 8–9, 16–17, 19, 21, 22, 24, 96,
98, 114, 117, 122, 123, 131, 140. See valve, 10, 12, 46–54, 59, 60–61, 76, 77,
also magnitude 140, 141
sluice, 10, 46, 48, 51, 76 van Gutschoven, Gérard, 60, 83
Smith, Pamela, 77 van Helmont, Joan Baptista, 134
snowflake, 9, 71, 86–87, 108, 120, 138 van Leeuwenhoek, Antonie, 92
soul, 7–9, 14–16, 60, 65, 81–85, 96–97, Vesalius, Andreas, xi, 25–26, 35, 38–45,
103, 105–8, 114, 120, 122–25, 60, 74, 75, 77, 140
133–35, 141; and its faculties, ix, x, visual evidence, 70, 109, 126
4–5, 9, 11, 14, 23, 84, 113, 117, 118, visual representation, x-xi, 25–28, 32–33,
123, 132, 133, 137 37–38, 50, 60, 77–78
Spon, Jacob, 116, 126 vital property/principle, 6–7, 103–4
188 Index
vitalism/vitalist, 6–7
vivisection, 12, 15, 48, 52, 59, 67
von Gersdoff, Hans, 38
von Guericke, Otto, 35
von Kalkar, Jan Stephen, 42
von Staden, Heinrich, 10
Walaeus, Johannes, 51–52, 60, 77

watch, 16–18, 20, 37, 96, 100
weaving, 12, 21
weight, 20, 118, 131
Willis, Timothy, 80–81
Willis, Thomas, 54–55, 76, 77, 84, 139, 141
Worcester, 89
Wren, Christophe,r 97
Yvon, Claude, 107
Zonca, Vittorio, 30–31, 35, 48

Meli DB Mechanism A Visual Lexical and Conceptual History

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Mechanism

A Visual, Lexical, and Conceptual History

Domenico Bertoloni Meli

University of Pittsburgh Press

Cataloging-in-Publication data is available from the Library of Congress

ISBN 13: 978-0-8229-4547-5

Although there is a vast intersection between the notion of mechanism and

previous discussion. I am especially interested in the bold attempts to provide

The Problem of Labeling

In one among his numerous publications on mechanism, Discovering Cell

A New Look at Mechanisms

Intermezzo: Galen of Pergamon

equivalent to, a pendulum clock, an updated version of an archetypal mechanical

was an incorporeal agent allegedly explaining Boyle’s hydrostatic experiments,

I have also identified a cluster of problems associated with a discourse on

Mechanism and Visualization

Preamble: New Forms of Visual Representation

drawings largely, though by no means exclusively, inspired by perspective. In

mately two dozen presentational manuscript and printed treatises of machines

tablished extensive and at times fractious collaborations with several instrument

visual representations, especially spatial perspectival renderings, played an im-

Revisiting Vesalius’s Fabrica

of implements he employed, casually displayed on a table, from sturdy saw, knife,

Motion and Directionality: Little Doors and Valves

Fig. 2.17. Little doors in the

Fig. 2.18. Water sluices (detail). Zonca, Novo teatro (1607).

Harvey’s reinterpretation of Fabricius’s views involved different graphic con-

Ducts and Valves: The Body as a Hydraulic System

Mechanisms between Representation and Idealization

body of increasingly complex machinery and probably on the relevant illustrated

Dioptrique. The hypothetical structure of the nerves gestures toward an account

It was this account of an anatomical structure and its mode of operation,

Fig. 2.33. Nervous tubules. Descartes-

Visualization of Microscopic Mechanisms

he had challenged approximately thirty years earlier, highlighting the difficulties

A Brief Coda: Govert Bidloo’s Anatomia

Fig. 2.39. The most famous seventeenth-century wool-carding implement. Courte-

satisfactory: on the one hand, seemingly simple and straightforward anatomical

contemporary biology relate to microscopic entities at the cellular or molecular

“The Very Word Mechanism”

Early Occurrences to the 1650s

Mechanism and the Immaterial Soul

Spirit of Nature, or “hylarchick principle,” in order to explain many phenomena

Here “mechanism” is understood in anatomical terms and applies to the ac-

Microscopy and Mechanism

In discussing the microstructure of a stone from the borough of Kettering,

On another occasion Hooke refers to the “Mechanism of Nature” with a dif-

Hooke attaches a teleological dimension to the organization of the feathers’

He further observed that these structures—known to us as halteres—are set

measure humidity, or a hygroscope. This is an instance in which nature inspired

More specifically, Hooke envisaged a mechanism whereby changes in humidi-

About fifteen years later, in Lectiones cutlerianae, commenting on some re-

id contingat obscurissimum,” or literally, “it is most obscure by which art this

As Machamer, Darden, and Craver have pointed out, “intelligibility is histori-

Mechanism Debated and Defined

Here Glanvill challenges “meer Mechanisme”—the very same expression em-

delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, Charleton gestures toward a mecha-

In later passages Charleton seeks to provide a more detailed account of the

By “mechanism” Charleton means primarily a structure with its component

Tyson also provides a methodological perspective: “Natures Synthetic Method in

Comparative anatomy offers endless opportunities to identify and discuss

mechanism emphasizes nature’s ingenuity more than necessarily a mechanistic

Organism and Mechanism between London and Halle