132 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



tween the effects produced by different parts of the lode- 

 stone, in order that the magnetizing operations above de- 

 scribed might be done ; the directive tendency of the mag- 

 net ; the making of artificial magnets by rubbing iron 

 needles with the stone, such magnets also showing differ- 

 ent properties at opposite parts; the supporting of the com- 

 pass needle on liquid, as a rotary armature; the prevention 

 of the disturbing effects of inertia and fluid resistance, and 

 the use of the instrument to reveal the position of the hid- 

 den Pole star. It is contrary to the teaching of the his- 

 tory of human invention since the beginning of the world, 

 to the principle which underlies all human progress, to 

 assume that all these discoveries were made simultane- 

 ously, and therefore that the compass of Neckain, crude 

 as it is, was the product of a single inventive act. On 

 the contrary, such a chain of phenomena is of necessity 

 the result of evolution, and of slow evolution because oc- 

 curring at a period when the current of all exact thought 

 moved most sluggishly. 



Observe that Neckam has linked together all the elec- 

 tric knowledge of his time. In the same treatise he dis- 

 cusses amber and lodestone attraction, the repelling effect 

 of the magnet, the polarity of it, and as the fruit and 

 flower of all, exhibits the mariner's compass. Klaproth, 

 as I have stated, says that the Chinese had no knowledge 

 of the instrument until during the I3th century, and hence 

 after Neckam' s day. The claim made by another author- 

 ity, that a single Chinese writing asserts that the compass 

 was used on a voyage in 1122 A. D., furnishes no proof 

 that afterwards, and between that date and the period 

 which Klaproth takes as the earliest, there was any con- 

 tinued marine employment of the magnetic needle by the 

 Chinese. It is hardly reasonable to assume that the in- 

 telligence of this isolated use in 1122 could have reached 

 England in the very depths of the Dark Ages, at a time 

 more than 150 years before Marco Polo made his famous 

 voyage, when practically no communication existed be- 



