ABSTRACT
Although the Mechanics was a seminal text in the development of early modern mechanics, by the middle of the eighteenth century it had long ceased to be part of the scientific curriculum, and became an object of study as a text in the history of science. This brought with itself a fundamental reappraisal. A text previously highly regarded for its original contribution was put down by Montucla as “entirely false” in most of its explanations, and the treatment of the first problem was labeled “completely ridiculous.”1 This change in evaluation did not call in doubt the Aristotelian authorship of the work. Montucla2 spoke about a first, very rough draft of the
discipline, and attributed this to Aristotle. But soon afterwards the Aristotelian authorship itself was also called into question, and by the midnineteenth century this had become the consensus view.
