FIRST DIALOGUE

make it sturdy and resistant to great force applied to break it: but a rope composed of hemp threads no longer than two or three braccia ell/cubit, a unit of length each, how will it be able to reduce itself to the length of one hundred while remaining so sturdy? Furthermore, I would also like to hear your opinion concerning the attachment of the parts of metals, of stones, and of other materials devoid of such filaments, which yet, if I do not deceive myself, is even more tenacious.

Salu. We shall have to divert into new speculations, not very necessary for our intent, if we are to provide solutions to the proposed difficulties.

Sagr. But if digressions can bring us the knowledge of new truths, what harm is there to us who are not bound to a tight and concise method, but who make our progress only for our own pleasure, to digress now so as not to lose those notices which, perhaps once the encountered occasion is left behind, might not present themselves another time? Indeed, who knows if very often one cannot discover curiosities more beautiful than the primarily sought conclusions? I therefore pray you again to give satisfaction to Mr. Simplicio, and to me, no less curious than him and desirous of understanding what that glue is, which so tenaciously keeps the parts of solids joined, which yet are finally dissolvable: a knowledge that is also necessary for understanding the coherence of the parts of those same filaments of which some of the solids are composed.

Salu. Here I am to serve you, since it pleases you so. The first difficulty is: how can the filaments of a rope one hundred braccia long be so firmly connected together (each of them being no longer than two or three) that great violence is needed to separate them. But tell me, Mr. Simplicio, could you not hold one of the extremities of a single thread of hemp so tightly between your fingers that, I pulling from the other, I would break it before freeing it from your hand? Certainly yes: when therefore the threads of the hemp were held tightly, not only at the extremities but in their entire length with great force by those who surrounded them, is it not a manifest thing that to pull them from the one who