MECHANISM

in mechanical construction, the means employed to transmit and modify motion in a machine or any assemblage of mechanical parts. The chief characteristic of the mechanism of a machine is that all members have constrained motion; i.e., the parts can move only in a determinate manner relative to one another. The nature of these relative motions is determined largely by the number of parts and the way in which they are connected. Regardless of its complexity, the mechanism of a machine can always be analyzed as an assemblage of simple basic mechanisms, each of which contains members or links that transmit motion from one moving link to another with or without modification in degree or kind. In general, there are three ways in which this can be done: by a wrapping connector such as a chain (q.v.) or belt (see belt drive); by direct contact as in a cam or gear (qq.v.); or by a pin-connected link (see linkage). in philosophy, the predominant form of Materialism, which holds that natural phenomena can and should be explained by reference to matter and motion and their laws. Upholders of this philosophy were mainly concerned with the elimination from science of such unobservables as substantial form and occult qualities that could not be related to the mathematical method. It rejected the notion of organisms by reducing biological functions to physical and chemical processes, thus putting an end to spiritbody dualism. The 17th-century chemist Robert Boyle raised the question whether mechanism could be combined with the assumption that nature has designs.