The people who wrote the treatises would have based their ideas on Aristotelian physics and not Newtonian physics simply because that is what would have been available to them. It is not until we read much later smallsword texts that Newtonian physics could possibly have been applied. So in this case Aristotelian physics is the most appropriate when reading these treatises. This is simply because most of these treatises that are being studied were written before Sir Issac Newton was even born!
The same sort of approach can be taken when reading these texts in regard to geometry, in this case Euclid would be the prime source for knowledge, thus the so-called “classical” authors is where most of the knowledge of science and mathematics was drawn for this period. These are the texts that a person should be reading to gain an understanding of what the authors knew when they wrote the treatises. As a result, by reading these books a person will gain an insight into the mind-set of the author as well and a greater understanding of what has been written.
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