ALEXANDER NECKAM. 123 



the pelican which dies to feed them; the nightingale 

 which sings on one bank of a stream and never on the 

 other; the grasshoppers generated by the cuckoo; the par- 

 rot which drops dead on hearing the language of its native 

 land; the dog which manages the sails of a boat which its 

 master steers ; the wren which hides under the eagle's 

 wing and when the eagle rises in the air above all other 

 birds, slips out and flutters over him and so wins the con- 

 test; the squirrel which crosses rivers on a chip with his 

 tail for a sail ; the lynx with eyes so sharp that it can see 

 through nine walls : all discussed as Neckam promises in 

 the beginning u morally." 



The portions of Neckam's writings which are of especial 

 interest and importance in our present research are the 

 chapter 1 on attractive strength in his De Natura Rerum, 

 and a paragraph in another treatise De Utensilibus, the 

 last being a sort of vocabulary or series of lists of articles 

 in ordinary use. These show clearly the point to which 

 knowledge of the magnet and amber had progressed, and 

 the curious conceptions and fancies which had become in- 

 termingled with it. 



In attacking the subject of attraction, Neckam defines 

 the existing doctrine of similitudes, which was very closely 

 like the ancient theory of sympathies and antipathies, by 

 means of which it was sought to explain every phenomenon 

 of nature by a mutual affinity or reciprocal dependence of 

 bodies, whether celestial or terrestrial, organic or inor- 

 ganic; such as gravity, cohesion, the force we call chemi- 

 cal " affinity," (and for which we still retain the old name 

 though with a different understanding of it) and all move- 

 ments, natural and instinctive, of living things. 



The theory came originally from the Greek, and espec- 

 ially from Galen, who maintained that there was a vital, 

 intelligent and divine power in nature, by virtue of which 

 every substance appropriates that which suits its constitu- 



*Cap. xcviii. 



