Meditações - leading mathematicians took an interest in the improvement of clocks

The mechanical philosophy certainly meant different things to different actors at the time, and many philosophers did not subscribe to its main tenets. Yet few historians would argue with the claim that in any account of seventeenth-century natural philosophy the mechanical philosophy holds a central position; that in this philosophy matter and motion replaced substantial forms as preferred explanatory principles; that the sobering effects of the mechanical philosophy were welcomed by many in a time of religious strife; that the mathematical study of motion—whether of light rays, terrestrial objects, or heavenly bodies—became a major field of interest among mathematicians at the time; that leading mathematicians at mid century took an interest in the improvement of clocks; that many natural philosophers compared nature to a clock partly to illustrate the nature of its hidden mechanisms; and that the same model was used to illustrate the relationship between God and his creation and that between the monarch and his subordinates.

Frans van Lunteren