I examine the two chief anatomical and physiological (embodiment) theories of voluntary animal motion from the time of Aristotle (b. 384 B.C.) to that of Mondino (d, A.D. 1326). The formal study of animal motion commenced with the Greek natural philosopher Aristotle who wrote the first monograph on the topic entitled On the motion of animals. The subject of animal motion was subsequently dealt with in a variety of ancient and medieval Greek, Latin, and Arabic medical monographs, commentaries, and encyclopedias. I first examine Aristotle's researches on animal motion. Aristotle developed the 'cardiosinew' embodiment theory of volition that was subsequently defended by adherents of Aristotelian and Stoic schools of philosophy. I next examine the experimental methods developed by the Greek physician Galen (d. A.D. 216) which he applied to the study of voluntary movement. Galen built on the 'cerebroneuromuscular' embodiment theory of volition discovered by Herophilus. Galen experimentally demonstrated the cerebral location of the "controlling-part" or "hegemonikon" of the soul, and clarified the functions of the nerves, tendons, ligaments, and muscles. I then examine late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, an era of intellectual retrenchment in Europe and the Middle East when anatomical and physiological research ceased and knowledge was compressed and schematized.

Lastly, I study the late Middle Ages, which saw the renewal of Galenic medical theory and Aristotelian natural philosophy in the wake of the Latin translations of Arabic and Greek medicine and science. The infusion of Greco-Arabic medicine into the Latin West crystallized around a new medical syllabus, the Articella, which became the nucleus around which future developments in medical pedagogy, learned medical commentary, and even animal dissection revolved. These trends culminated with the Italian physician Mondino's important dissection manual, the Anatomia, which introduced human dissection into university medical education for the first time. I have included photographs of a series of dissections of the Rhesus monkey, the Chimpanzee, and the sheep heart that I conducted according to Galenic and Aristotelian methods of dissection in order to help resolve certain problematic empirical claims made by ancient and medieval investigators concerning the material embodiments of will.