Campanella follows the smoke rising from a charcoal brazier

What sets a stone in motion

Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639) was an Italian philosopher and Dominican friar from Calabria. In his book on the sense of things he starts from an everyday contrast. A stone lies still and smoke rises. What can their different behaviour tell us about motion?

From stone to vapour

Campanella puts ice alongside stone. Both appear dense, cold and still. When fire turns matter into smoke or vapour, he sees movement become perceptible. That motion can pass to another body. His next example is wind pushing a ship along.[1]

We see that fire gives motion to all things. For dense and cold things, such as stones, frozen water, plants and earth, have no motion. But when fire resolves them into smoke and finer vapour, they all move and impart motion to the things to which they attach themselves.[1]

Warmth in a living body

From the movement of substances the chapter turns to the movement of animals. A pulse beats and a chest rises even when the rest of an animal is quite still. The same question about the source of motion thus connects a stone with a breathing body in Campanella’s account of nature.[1]