Abstract
“Animals are bodies and their vital operations are either movements or actions which require movements. But bodies and movements are the subject of Mathematics. Such a scientific approach is exactly Geometry. Similarly, the operations of animals are carried out using instruments and mechanical means such as scales, levers, pulleys, winding-drums, nails, spirals, etc. Thus it is true that, in building the organs of animals, God exerts geometry. To understand them we need geometry which is the unique and appropriate science to enable one to read and understand the divine book written on animals.
”1 Such was how Giovanni Borelli, an early modern Italian physiologist, biomechanist, physicist and mathematician, introduced his seminal work De Motu Animalium (“On the Movement of Animals”) (1680)—and, in so doing, inaugurated the idea of the body as a material machine. Later on in his work he goes on to discuss, for example, how much force is needed to lift different weights using different levers, and then applies the conclusions to the human arm.
