obvious absence * of such techniques in De magnete 

 makes it difficult to consider Gilbert as a founder of 

 modern electricity and magnetism in this sense. 



There is another sense in which it is possible to 

 contend that Gilbert's treatise introduced modern 

 studies in these fields. He has frequently been 

 credited with the introduction of the inductive 

 method based upon stubborn facts, in contrast to 

 the methods and content of medieval Aristotelianism.^ 

 No science can be based upon faulty observations 

 and certainly much of De magnete was devoted to the 

 destruction of the fantastic tales and occult sym- 

 pathies of the Romans, the medieval writers, and the 

 Renaissance. However, let us also remember that 

 Gilbert added few novel empirical facts of a 

 fundamental nature to previous observations on the 

 loadstone. Gilbert's experimental work was in large 

 part an expansion of Pctrus Peregrinus' De magnete 

 of 1269,° and a development of works like Robert Nor- 

 man's The new attractive,' in which the author discussed 

 how one could show experimentally the declination and 

 inclination of a magnetized needle, and like William 

 Borough's Discourse on the variation oj the compass or 

 magnetized needle,^ in which the author suggested the 

 use of magnetic declination and inclination for navi- 

 gational purposes but felt too little was known about 

 it. That other sea-going nations had been considering 



* However, see M: pp. 161, 162, 168, 335. 



' For example, William Whcwcll, History of the inductive 

 sciences, ed. 3, New York, 1858, vol. 2, pp. 192 and 217; Charles 

 Singer, A short history of science to the nineteenth century, Oxford, 

 1943, pp. 188 and 343; and A. R. Hall, The scientific revolution, 

 Boston, 1956, p. 185. 



* Petti Peregrini maricurlenis, de magnete, sen rota perpetui molus, 

 liliellus, a reprint of the 1558 Angsburg edition in J. G. G. 

 Hellmann, Rara magnetica, Berlin, 1898, not paginated. A 

 number of editions of Peregrinus, work, both ascribed to him 

 and plagiarized from him, appeared in the 16th century (see 

 Heinz Balmer, Beitidge zur Geschichte der Erkenntnis des Erdmag- 

 netismus, Aarau, 1956, pp. 249-255). 



' Hellmann, ibid., Robert Norman, The newe attractive, con- 

 lainyng a short discourse of the magnes or lodestone, and amongest other 

 his verlues, of a newe discovered secret and sulitill properlie, concernyng 

 the declinyng of the needle, touched therewith under the plaine of the 

 horizon. Now first Jounde out by Robeit jVoi?nan Hydt ographer . 

 London, 1581. The possibility is present that Norman's work 

 was a direct stimulus to Gilbert, for Wright's introduction to 

 De magnete stated that Gilbert started his study of magnetism 

 the year following the publication of Norman's book. 



* Hellman, ibid., William Borough, .i discourse of the variation 

 of the compasse, or magneticatl needle. ^therein is mathematically 

 shewed, the manner of the observation, effects, and application thereof, 

 made by W. B. And is to be annexed to the newe attractive of R. N. 

 London, 1596. 



using the properties of the magnetic compass to solve 

 their problems of navigation in the same manner can 

 be seen from Simon Ste\in's De havenvinding.* 



Instead of new experimental information, Gilbert's 

 major contribution to natural philosophy was that 

 revealed in the title of his book — a new philosophy 

 of nature, or physiology, as he called it, after the 

 early Greeks. Gilbert's attempt to organize the mass 

 of empirical information and speculation that came 

 from scholars and artisans, from chart and instru- 

 ment makers, made him "the father of the magnetic 

 Philosophy." '" 



Gilbert's De magnete was not the first attempt to 

 determine the nature of the loadstone and to explain 

 how it could influence other loadstones or iron. It 

 is typical of Greek philosophy that one of the first 

 references we have to the loadstone is not to its 

 properties but to the problem of how to explain these 

 properties. Aristotle *' preserved the solution of the 

 first of the Ionian physiologists: "Thales too . . . 

 seems to suppose that the soul is in a sense the cause 

 of movement, since he says that a stone has a soul 

 because it causes movement to iron." Plato turned 

 to a similar animistic explanation in his dialogue, 

 /o«.'" Such an animistic solution pcr\a(lccl manv of 

 the later explanations. 



That a mechanical explanation is also possible was 

 shown by Plato in his Timaeus.^^ He argued that 

 since a \acuum does not exist, there must be a 

 plenum throughout all space. Motion of this 

 plenum can carry objects along \vith it, and one 

 could in this manner explain attractions like that due 

 to amber and the loadstone. 



.■\nother mechanical explanation was based upon 

 a postulated tendency of atoms to move into a vac- 

 uum rather than upon the latter's non-existence. 

 Lucretius restated this Epicurean explanation in his 



' Hellman, tbid., Simon Stevin, De haveminding, Leyden, 1599. 

 It is interesting to note that Wright translated Stevin's work 

 into English. 



'" As Edward Wright was to call him in his introduction. 



" Aristotle, On the soul, translated by W. S. Hett, Loeb 

 Classical Library, London, 1935, 405a20 (see also 411a8: 

 "Some think that the soul pervades the whole universe, whence 

 perhaps came Thales' view that everything is full of gods"). 



'- Plato, Ion, translated by W. R. M. Lamb, Loeb Classical 

 Library, London, 1925, 533 (see also 536). 



'3 Plato, Timaeus, translated by R. G. Bury, Loeb Classical 

 Library, London, 1929, 80. It is difficult to determine which 

 explanation Plato preferred, for in Ixjih cases the speaker may 

 be only a foil for Plato's opinion raihcr than an expression 

 of these opinions. 



124 



BULLETIN 218: COMRIRl'TIONS FROM 1 UK MUSELTM OF HISTORY .^ND TECHNOLOGY 



