The Principles of Statics

The air now supports such a heavy weight within itself.
This spirit The author uses "spirit" (spiritus) to refer to the air or atmosphere. is as gentle and light as these bodies,
and these bodies behave like the light spirit. So much
is Nature capable of. Art, the rival of Nature, is capable of just as much.

The Pantocrator Greek for "All-Powerful." Here it refers to an ultimate machine or the principle of statics. is of much greater power than the Trispastus A triple-pulley system attributed to Archimedes. of Archimedes, and is much more useful.

Come now, let the Pantocrator be shut in a blind prison,
and let houses and temples begin to be moved from the outside;
let forests and mountains begin to migrate. To you
who see this, what would your mind think, what would be your composure?
If Nature is acted upon rightly, Nature also acts with you,
if you believe she proceeded by the lawful laws of Nature.
That these things proceed by lawful laws, take this also.
Suppose there were another Earth besides this one, if such were allowed:
if you place me there on a firm heel—may I not live if I do not

\* Which is nevertheless immobile. † The Underworld, namely the center, which is also immobile.

move this Pole with the Earth *, and the † Acheron A river in the underworld, used here to represent the deep center of the Earth..
The Art of Weighing original Latin: Trutinaria. This is the science of balances and statics. teaches us this. This same art warns that all things
everywhere consist of weights; that nothing is without weight,

\* So said the divine Plato; Aristotle argued the contrary.

not even * our own air, nor the ethereal breeze.
Although there have been measurers of the sea, the earth,
and the sands of powerful number, they did not however
measure the space of the air, or weigh the force of its weight.
Surely you, Alhazen Ibn al-Haytham (c. 965–1040), a pioneering physicist and mathematician known for his work on optics and atmospheric refraction., who saw the clouds pass through that place;

To others, the rainbow is colored in reality; to Aristotle, it is so in appearance, which is even more significant.

in which region the color of the * Rainbow appears; whether
the South wind, the West, the North, or the East is above it;
whether there is a certain place for Comets, and how it may be—
I see and revere your measurer. I believe you would have
followed him with easy reason as he advised of better things.
The space was not well-measured by you. That was more justly

In the Air-weight original Dutch: Lochtwicht. Stevin's term for Aerostatics..

weighed with a just * balance by Stevin, that
same old man, a studious lover of your study.

Willingly and deservedly [yielding] to this little glory. original: "L. M. huic gloriolæ cef-" likely abbreviating "Libens Merito cessit."

Therefore, as a * leader, he walks through these places where none have gone before.