ON THE FORCE

OF PERCUSSION

BY GIOVANNI ALFONSO BORELLI

On the Nature of Motion in General.

CHAPTER I.

An ornamental drop cap 'A' is depicted, styled with floral and vine motifs.

About to treat of the force and energy of percussion, I deem it worthwhile to first explain some things about motion in general, with as much brevity and perspicuity as I can, so that we may understand what motion is, what its causes and principles are, what its effects are, how it is produced or destroyed, and other things of this kind.

And first, regarding the definition of motion, it is known, as we have explained elsewhere, that a definition is a notion or idea by means of which we clearly perceive the nature of the defined thing, and by which we distinguish and segregate it from any other. We achieve this if we select that property and affection of the subject which is most known of all those that belong to it. And since the most evident passion which bodies have that are agitated and carried by local motion—and which all resting and immobile bodies lack—is nothing other than a transition or migration from one place to another,
Definition of motion.

local motion will therefore be a successive transition from one place to another in some determined time, traversing all parts of the place or space passed through by successive contacts following one another.
Motion is of the genus of continuous, successive quantity.

Motion, therefore (a matter surely most evident), does not need circumlocutions and a lengthier exposition, and seems to be the mode of bodies in which it exists or operates, and is reduced to the genus of continuous quantity—not indeed permanent, but successive—because, naturally, motion has such a connection