  Once projectile motion was understood in terms of an impetus in this way, it became possible for Philoponus to reassess the rôle of the medium: far from being responsible for the continuation of a projectile’s motion it is in fact an impediment to it (In Phys. 681). On this basis Philoponus concludes, against Aristotle, that there is in fact nothing to prevent one from imagining motion taking place through a void. As regards the natural motion of bodies falling through a medium, it was Aristotle’s contention that the speed is proportional to the weight of the moving bodies and indirectly proportional to the density of the medium. Philoponus repudiates this view by appeal to the same kind of experiment that Galileo was to carry out centuries later (In Phys. 682–84).