<s id="A18-2.02.02">The second power is the one that is called lever and this power is perhaps the first thing one thought of for the moving of excessively heavy bodies.</s>
<s id="A18-2.02.03">For, since the first thing that one needed if one wanted to move a body of excessive weight was to lift it off the ground in its motion, but one did not have any hold on it, to grip it, since all parts of its base were lying on the ground, so one necessarily thought of this procedure, made below the body a small pit in the ground, took a long [piece of] wood, put one end of it into that pit and pressed the other one downward; so the load rose.</s>
<s id="A18-2.02.04">Then one put under that [piece of] wood a stone [block], which one called Hypomochlion, i.e., that which is put under the lever, and pressed it downward again, so the load rose even more.</s>
<s id="A18-2.02.05">When this power became known, one understood that it was possible to move big loads in this way.</s>
<s id="A18-2.02.06">This [piece of] wood is called a lever, may it be round or square.</s>
<s id="A18-2.02.07">The closer one brings the stone [block], that one puts under it, to the load, the more comfortable it is for the motion, as we are going to show in the following.</s>
