36 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



Scaliger, 1 as usual, savagely, "I am able to prove, by 

 many arguments, were concocted by the Greeks, in whom 

 the will or faculty for lying never failed." 



Let me now recapitulate. We have found lack of evi- 

 dence to prove that the Egyptians, at the time of Thales, 

 were cognizant of the magnet. Therefore it may be 

 assumed that Thales did not acquire whatever knowledge 

 he may have had concerning this substance from Egypt- 

 ian sources. We have also found that the working of iron 

 mines in Phrygia was of great antiquity, that magnetite 

 ore existed there and in Lydia, and probably was abund- 

 antly disseminated through Asia Minor. So also it appears 

 that the magnet was exhibited as a part of the Samothra- 

 cian mysteries, which were also of extremely ancient 

 origin. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to conclude that 

 Thales' knowledge of the magnet was home knowledge, 

 and that his doctrine of the soul inherent therein, was 

 intended to be in direct contrast with the prevailing 

 theories fostered by the priests of the Cabiric mysteries, 

 namely, that the stone was supernaturally influenced. 



If the tradition of the Syrian women is older than the 

 time of Thales, it may be presumed that the amber attrac- 

 tion was not unfamiliar to him; otherwise I have encoun- 

 tered no direct evidence of earlier knowledge of it than 

 exists in the Timseus of Plato, and Plato lived nearly two 

 centuries after Thales. 



The explanation given by Plato excludes all idea of at- 

 traction. "Moreover," says the philosopher, "as to the 

 flowing water, the fall of the thunderbolt, and the marvels 

 that are observed about the attraction of amber and the 

 Heraclean stone ; in none of these cases is there any attrac- 

 tion, but he who investigates truly, will find that such 

 wonderful phenomena are attributable to the non-existence 

 of a vacuum, taken in combination with the fact, that these 



1 Ep., 306. See also Blount : Censura Celebriorum Authorum. Geneva, 

 1710, 158. 



