On Automata, or Self-Moving Machines

history, for the greatness of his miracles; seeing that, through prayer, he moved mountains, dried up marshes, and by merely thrusting his staff into the bank, checked the force and flooding of the river Lycus. Wonder arises from seeing some unusual effect judged to be impossible, and of which the cause is unknown; and such exactly are the effects produced by these machines. Hence it is that when any of these arrives in a city, the people run together in crowds, and to see them they care nothing for the expense of money. In the book De Mundo to Alexander, which we cited above, these machines were called , which is as much as to say machines pulled by sinews; seeing that those small cords which pass through their limbs have in them the very same force that sinews have in animals. I nonetheless judge that there is a difference between the and the : namely, that the automaton, or self-moving thing, is that in which the artisan does not pull the strings, but rather a hidden counterweight; whereas in the , without the aid of counterweights, the artisan himself pulls now this and now that other small cord to make the figures move their arm, hand, foot, and head, or eyes, as we see in those little images which are usually given to children for their amusement. The master of these machines, according to and , can be none other than he who has a good knowledge of , and principally of that part which serves for machines, and has joined to that a great familiarity with the , such as those of wood and iron, and is of a perspicacious, inventive, and alert genius; for without this, would be of little use. But neither genius nor mathematics would avail if, when it became necessary to proceed to execution, the hand were not a fit minister to the intellect; less industry is required—