90 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



it is evident that in no stronger manner could he have 

 used his knowledge of magnetic attraction in order to 

 accomplish his object : a defense of miracles and to depre- 

 cate the demand that the latter should be explained by 

 human reason. If, he argues in substance, man cannot 

 explain these plain natural occurrences, how can man be 

 expected to explain events that are supernatural? "When 

 we declare the miracles which God has wrought or will 

 yet work, and which we cannot bring under the very eyes 

 of men, skeptics keep demanding that we shall explain 

 these by reason, and because we cannot do so, inasmuch 

 as they are above human comprehension, they say that 

 we are speaking falsely." 



St. Gregorius Nyssenus l also describes the communica- 

 tion of the magnetic virtue from one piece of iron to an- 

 other with simple accuracy, but in most of the Patristic 

 writings which refer to it the phenomenon is dealt with as 

 illustrative of the attraction of the soul to Deity, of Divine 

 control, or of the permeation of the Holy Spirit. 



"For although God appeared to material things," says 

 Tertullian, 2 "yet He did not injure them because of grace, 

 and approached, but did not become of them, like the mag- 

 net to iron. " "If the magnet and amber have the strength 

 to draw rings and reeds and chaff," says St. Jerome, 3 "how 

 much the more irresistibly can the Lord of all created 

 things draw unto Himself that which He desires." St. 

 Ambrose,* after describing how the magnetic virtue most 

 strongly affects the ring next adherent to the magnet, and 

 is weakest in the last ring of the chain, finds in this an 

 illustration of the gradual lapse of the soul from the pure 

 state to sin. St. Gregory Nazianzenus 5 sees in the united 

 rings an illustration of the binding power of the Spirit. 

 Theodoritus, Bishop of Cyrrhus, 6 referring to the capability 



1 De Homine, cap. i. 2 Lib. adv. Hermogenem, cxliv. 



'Comment, in Ev. Matthaei, Lib. i, cxix., 50. 

 Epist., xlv., 983. 6 Oratio, de se ipso. 



6 De Curatione Infidelium Graecorum, ser. 5. 



