l66 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



and that he pursued learning for its own sake, neglecting 

 all rewards, although his wisdom was sufficient to have 

 enabled him to accumulate immense wealth had he so 

 willed. That his experiments were continued over a con- 

 siderable period of time is shown by Bacon's statement 

 that he worked for three years upon burning glasses evi- 

 dently following in the footsteps of Archimedes. But, of 

 all his achievements, that which most excites the admira- 

 tion of the Friar, is his invention of a perpetual motion : 

 the first recorded contrivance of the kind which came into 

 the world, and probably the only one which in the end 

 served a good purpose. 



Here again the influence of Archimedes is apparent. 

 There had always been a tradition that that philosopher 

 constructed a sphere which reproduced the motions of the 

 heavenly bodies. Cicero 1 refers to it in a general way, 

 and Kircher 2 devotes a chapter to speculation on its possi- 

 ble construction; but probably it was nothing more than 

 an orrery, showing the supposed relative positions and 

 movements of the planets, but destitute, of course, of any 

 automatic mechanism. 



The circumstances which led to Master Peter's presence 

 at the siege of Lucera are not difficult to conjecture. He 

 probably belonged to one of the semi-military religious 

 orders which, like the Templars, took an active part in 

 the Crusades. The name of "Peregrinus" or Pilgrim, 

 which later writers substitute for the surname u deMari- 

 court," shows that he had made the pilgrimage to the 

 Holy Land for this was a common honorary title ac- 

 corded to persons who had taken part in the efforts to 

 rescue the Holy Sepulchre; and, as Charles of Anjou, under 

 whom we now find him serving, had joined the first crusade 



1 De Nat. Deorum, ii, 35. Tusc. Disp., i. 25. 



2 De Arte Magnetica. Rome, 1654, lib. ii., part iv , p. 245. See also, 

 Claud. Ep. xxi. In Sphaerum Archim., Sext. Empiric, adv. Math. ix. 

 15. Lactantius: Div. Inst., ii. 5. Ov.: Fast vi. 277. Smith: Diet, of Gr. 

 and Rom. Biog. and Myth. i. 2711. 



