4O THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



ing the minerals of so many different and distant countries, 

 'that little doubt can remain that he wrote the book with 

 the collections of Aristotle directly before him. Here, for 

 the first time, is given definite information concerning the 

 amber attraction. "Amber," he says, "is a stone. It is 

 dug out of the earth in Liguria, and has a power of attrac- 

 tion. It is said to attract not only straws and small pieces 

 of sticks, but even copper and iron, if they are beaten into 

 thin pieces." 



Then, bringing the amber and the lodestone into the 

 salne attracting class, he adds : 



"But the greatest and most evident attractive quality is 

 in that stone which attracts iron. But that is a scarce 

 stone and found in but few places. It ought, however, 

 to be ranked with these stones, as it possesses a like 

 quality." 



It is a significant circumstance that there is no sugges- 

 tion of the soul animating the stones contained in Theo- 

 phrastus' terse and practical account of their qualities. 

 Their concretion, he says, is due to heat or cold, some 

 kinds of stones being occasioned by the one cause, others 

 by the other ; they differ likewise in the matter and man- 

 ner of the affluxes of the terrestrial particles from which 

 they are formed, and likewise they have "powers" of 

 their concreted masses, which are different from their 

 qualities of hardness, color, density, etc., and which in- 

 clude their capacity for acting upon other bodies or being 

 subject or not subject to be acted upon by them. Thus, 

 he points out, some are fusible, others not so, and others 

 can color water or cause petrifaction, and among these 

 powers is included the attractive quality. 



There is no regarding this as anything but a strictly 

 scientific and material view of the subject, which if taken 

 in Aristotle's time, may perhaps account for that philoso- 

 pher's doubtful and cautious dealing with Thales' theory 

 of the prevailing soul. The calm and terse enumeration 

 of physical characteristics, and the theories and classifica- 



