Grace Taking Form: Marey's Movement Machines

In his paper Grace Taking Form: Marey's Movement Machines Eric Manning goes to great pains to describe the underlying principles that lead to the creation of Erienne-Jules Marey's intricate machines designed to capture and record motion. While several insightful scholarly quotations were inserted by Manning, which helped to clarify his thesis, the essay was generally overly elaborate with several examples of Manning defining terms with the term that he sought to define. Phrases like "drawing perception drawing" and "drawing vision drawing" abound, while actual explanations of Marey's true intent and the purpose of his machines are generalized.
Some interest and insight can be gained from Grace Taking Form, but these insights are not original ideas of the author. An explanation that everything is in motion and that the eye only perceives a series of edges, is a revelation by Marey that Manning briefly touches upon, but fails to sufficiently elaborate. The title Grace Taking Form is probably the most explained and defined portion of the essay, but the clearest explanation of grace is a quotation from Bergson, expounded on by Manning in the line "A graceful movement is one that feels like it already carries the fullness of the movement-passing within the pre-acceleration of the movement taking form." While this explanation is somewhat clear and insightful, movement-passing isn't an actual term. The correct term is motion. Additionally pre-acceleration is also a fanciful term that would indicate a grievous breach of Newton's Laws (Laws not theories). The state of acceleration is a binary term, either something is accelerating or it isn't. Marey would have scowled at the idea of pre-acceleration, as seemingly his entire life's work was to measure imperceptible forces, acceleration being one of them. However, the idea that grace is the beginning of motion that foreshadows the continuance of that motion is a useful idea and is indeed used to explain why a curved line appears more graceful than a jagged one. The curve predicts where the line is headed, and thus imparts grace.
The fundamental concept of grace is a useful one that has numerous practical applications, but Manning's paper is a failure. From beginning to end it is jumbled and unclear. The authors repetitive use of elaborate vocabulary combined with fanciful terms slows understanding, and his overall reaction to Marey's experimental machines seem to miss the mark.