228 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



down and the iron sent to a blacksmith to be straightened, 

 and while it lay in the smithy, Cesare, by chance, noticed 

 that it possessed attractive properties. By an odd co- 

 incidence the church was dedicated to St. Augustine ; so 

 that one might almost fancy that the influence of the Saint 

 whose discoveries concerning the magnet have already 

 been noted, was somehow still potent to lead others in the 

 same path. The circumstance puzzled the philosophers 

 greatly ; for how, they asked, could iron which is a metal 

 be thus converted into lodestone which is a stone? For 

 the time being the old doctrine of sympathies and simili- 

 tudes the great likeness and sympathy between iron and 

 magnet furnished a sufficient answer: but after a few 

 years the true explanation appeared in a great work, to 

 which the orderly progress of this narrative forbids further 

 reference at present. 1 



Although the limiting of Sarpi's magnetic discoveries to 

 the destruction of magnetism by heat, and the apparent 

 concentration at the poles of the atmosphere or virtue 

 which Norman thought to be spherical seems to be the 

 consequence of the process of exclusion followed, it would 

 be unjust to the great Consul tore to assume that there are 

 here defined the actual metes and bounds of his accom- 

 plishments in magnetic research. The evidence so far 

 adduced concerning them is at best imperfect; while it 

 must be remembered that to depreciate their importance 

 or to obliterate them wholly, powerful forces have acted 

 for centuries. 



Still, to have conceived the first clear idea of the field 

 of force about the poles of a magnet is sufficient to give 

 the discoverer an undoubted pre-eminence, and that Sarpi 

 did this is not only indicated by a comparison of his 

 reputed achievements with what was already known, but 

 is strongly substantiated by the efforts which have been 

 made to deprive him of all credit for them. Sarpi had no 

 worse enemies than the Jesuits, whom he caused to be 



^Idrovanclus : Musaeum Metallicum. Milan, 1648, lib. I, 134. 



