240 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



Ill tracing the history of magnetic discovery, and es- 

 pecially that of the conception of the field of force, it has 

 been necessary, in order to avoid complication, to lose 

 sight, for a time, of the progress which the world was 

 making toward a better recognition of the phenomenon 

 of the amber. At the middle of the fifteenth century the 

 identity of the attractive force exercised by magnet and 

 amber was generally accepted as certain. No one thought 

 of seriously disputing the matter, no reason for investi- 

 gating an occurrence so manifest obtruded itself, and no 

 practical employment of amber in any wise akin to that 

 of the magnet invited research to discover what further 

 occult capabilities the resin might possess. By the end 

 of the century, however, the use of the compass had 

 brought people into greater familiarity with the lodestone, 

 and, as the knowledge of it increased, the time approached 

 when differences between amber attraction and magnet 

 attraction began to excite remark. But this was the 

 period when the Greek influence, which attended the re- 

 vival of learning after the fall of Constantinople, was 

 making itself felt throughout all Europe. The new school 

 of Platonists, under the leadership of Marsilio Ficino 1 the 

 Florentine, challenged the supremacy of the Aristotelian 

 philosophy, and precipitated new discussions which di- 

 vided the learned into opposing camps, wherein the wordy 

 warfare raged and the experimental study of nature was 

 forgotten. Yet it was Ficino himself who virtually re- 

 peated the question asked centuries before by St. Augus- 

 tine, by suggesting a difference between the amber and 

 the magnet; not, be it observed, by describing the respec- 

 tive phenomena and comparing the facts for that would 

 be far below the dignity of any Platonist, new or old but 

 by promulgating a speculation on the subject, which could 

 have arisen only from some previous knowledge based 

 upon the actual observation of such a difference. 



He says that iron is rendered magnetic, and maintained 



1 Born 1433, died 1499. 



