Hanafi, The Monster in the Machine

[Dave Monroe]

... from Zakiya Hanafi, The Monster in the Machine: Magic, Medicine, and
the Marvelous in the Time of the Scientific Revolution (Durham, NC: Duke
UP, 2000),  Chapter Three, "Monstrous Machines," pp. 53-96, discussing
Tomasso Campanella, Del senso delle cose della magia, Book 4, Chapter 18
(16??):

The next case to be examined is speaking statues, which must be
inhabited by demonic spirits (and not human or animal ones), he reasons,
because these are the only kinds of spirits capable of being trapped
inside metals.  (63)

The fact that monstrous races, new World savages, mechanical birds and
statues, speaking idols, and spontaneously generated animals are all
grouped together in the same context is not fortuitous.  The fact that
Campanella treats all these phenomena together or as correlated
practices or artifacts indicates that in some aspect they were indeed
seen as equivalent.  The one characteristic that unites savages,
automatons, and speaking statues is the fact that their parenthood is in
question.  Savages and monstrous races seem not to be descended from
Adam; hence there is a question of whether they were born directly from
Mother Earth, as Lucretius [De Rerum Naturae] described.  Animated
statues would appear to be self-generated, which is why Campanella
brings up their exquisite appearance: the idea that "such beautiful
statues" would spontaneously appear in nature out of nothing, with no
generator but themselves "seems too much to believe."  As for the famous
automatons of antiquity, although their likeness to creatures of "spirit
and flesh" and their ability to fly alongside real birds would convince
some of their prodigious nature, Campanella is quick to demystify their
functioning: "This is done with counterweights, like clocks, which,
winding up some wheels spun with wire, raise and lower their wings."
(63)

... "speaking statues," "demonic spirits," "savages," "not to be born
from Adam," Mother Earth, automata, clocks, "wheels spun with wire" ...