On Automata, or Self-Moving Machines

to them that name which belongs not to mimes and players, but principally suits the supreme artisan, who in that genre is none other than the himself, honored and most noble in his own right. The calling, then, of the ministers of the by the name of Mechanics has bespattered the name with that foulness it carries today. Whether for this reason, then, or for whatever other cause this has occurred, it suffices that it may be attributed to the ignorance of the common people and the obtuseness of their judgment. This did not happen in the times when these artifices were treated by those great Philosophers, such as , , , and other such men; and of this let the fact bear witness that they had as their praisers the , the , the , and so many other singular persons. There is another who says that the low reputation of those who attend to them arises from this: that these arts are of little necessity for human sustenance; how inappropriate this is may be measured by the nobility of the baker, the shoemaker, and the porter, than whose arts nothing is more necessary; and on the contrary, let one look at that of the , even though poems are neither eaten nor worn, nor do they help merchants to stow their ships or fill their warehouses. Noble, therefore, in themselves are these arts, but rendered ignoble by the accidents we mentioned; and of their nobility we may take notice from this: that their invention is most ancient, and most ancient their reputation; that it is marvelous; that it is principally aided by the purity and refinement of the ; that it does not soil the body; that it has no great need of its strength; and in short, that of itself it is not directed toward gain, but only toward a pleasure which, among those of the senses—like that of —is pure and honest, nor less than that does it pass into the recreation of the intellect, of which it is a sign that we see, while the figurines move of their own accord, the men who