Every heavy body strives toward the middle; and that opposition which is more oblique resists it more; and that will show itself heavier which has the weaker resistance; and that resistance will be weaker which is more remote from its support. Equal weights show themselves in the same proportion as that of their resistances. [Figure with letters.] See m equal to n in weight, and because its resistance is twice as long as that of n, it is also twice as weak. Therefore m, being 1, does the office of 2 against the one of n, through having its arm twice as long as that of n; whence whoever places at n another weight like the first will have twice as much weight as m, and so the balance will remain with equal opposite powers about its pole.

In every heavy body there is a power of natural motion and of weight that are equal, taken in the same direction.

Equal weights equally distant from the central line of the pole of their balance will not separate the arms of that balance from the position of equality, and if by accident it be separated from it, of itself it will return to the said position.

The central line is an imaginary straight line, which extends between the centre of the balance and the centre of the world, and has the power to interpose itself among the weights of the balances and to divide them with equal power and accidental virtue.

Unequal weights enter with the centre of their gravity, together with the straightness of the balance, into the central line of the pole.

If equal weights are hung on the unequal arms of the balance, the heavy body suspended from the longer part will be the cause of the motion of that balance.

If the arms of the balance are in the same proportion as the weights hung on them, and the heavier is hung on the shorter, those weights will be equally heavy, according to the site.

The equality of the obliquity preserves the same state of weight of the arms of the balance; the inequality of the obliquity of the arms, even though they be of various lengths, resists one the other at distances in inverse proportion to that of the length and obliquity of those arms.

If through two different obliquities two weights descend, and there is one and the same proportion of the obliquities and of the weights, then there will be found in the weights one and the same velocity in descending.

If the proportions of the arms are according to the proportion of the given weights, and the heavier hangs on the shorter arm, then the balance will remain in the position of equality.

In two grossoni there are ... to spend.

By the proportion of the weights the arms of the balance are found.

Given the proportions of the arms of the balance, the weight is given.

But if the weight is given, and the part to which it is hung is given, everything is given. And if the weight is given and the opposite part likewise given, everything is given.

This balance will come to rest when the inner angle n and likewise the outer angle m become equal to one another.

That thing is higher which departs more from the centre of the world.

The motion of the arrow is not of equal height from the centre of the world.

All things of equal height are not situated in a straight line.

By this figure we shall prove how the potential arms of the balance are not in the same proportion as the weights hung on it, nor even as the real arms of that balance, nor are the angles enclosed between the pendicles of the weights and the beam of such a balance equal. Therefore the philosophers have not concluded well, since the pendicles direct themselves with the centre of their gravities toward the centre of the world, nor will the beam with such unequal weights ever stand in the position of equality, nor will the lines of the pendicles ever be joined perpendicularly to the beam of the balance with right angles, because the straightness of such pendicles converges toward the centre of the world.