24 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



apparently that made in the fragmentary Oeneus of Eurip- 

 ides, which Suidas 1 quotes, and which distinctly refers to 

 the attraction of the lodestone for the iron. The subject 

 takes definite form, however, in the Ion of Plato; and 

 there, in the following words, Socrates describes the 

 famous rings : 



" The gift which you have of speaking excellently about 

 Homer, is not an art," says the sage, "but, as I was just 

 saying, an inspiration: there is a divinity moving you, like 

 that in the stone which Euripides calls a magnet, but 

 which is commonly known as the stone of Heraclea. For 

 that stone not only attracts iron rings, but also imparts to 

 them similar power of attracting other rings : and some- 

 times you may see a number of pieces of iron and rings 

 suspended from one another, so as to form quite a long 

 chain ; and all of these derive their powers of suspension 

 from the original stone. Now, this is like the Muse who 

 first gives to men inspiration herself, and from those in- 

 spired, her sons, a chain of other persons is suspended, 

 who will take the inspiration from them." 2 



Plato lived between the years 429 and 348 B. C., and 

 from his time forward the rings of Samothrace are de- 

 scribed again and again. Lucretius, writing three cen- 

 turies later, refers to them as still potent. Their well- 

 established existence shows that the Samothracian 

 wonder-workers not only were familiar with the attractive 

 power of the lodestone, but with its capability of inducing 

 a similar power in iron. The popular belief that every- 

 thing which produces wonderful effects must have won- 

 derful properties, and the converse popular tendency which 

 seeks a cause for any effect not understood, in things con- 

 cerning which prevailing ignorance is still deeper, were 

 fully as strong in those ancient days as they are now. 

 For precisely the same reason that the modern "magneto- 

 therapist" plays upon the imagination of the patient, or 



'Suidas : Lex. Graec. et. Lat. post T. Gaisford, Halle, 1853, 658. 

 *Jowett, B. : The Dialogues of Plato. 



