GILBERT'S PHILOSOPHY. 269 



that the Cupids and flowers which entwine the Royal 

 monogram were put there because of their assumed pleas- 

 ant significance to the "fair vestal throned by the West;" 

 but no one will deny the singular appropriateness of the 

 emblems of England's grandeur impressed upon the first 

 great scientific treatise of modern times, and flaunting 

 anew the challenge of the free Anglo-Saxon in the field 

 of thought as in that of arms. Rome denounced the 

 book; but there is no record that along with the treatises 

 of Galileo, to which they had lent inspiration and in com- 

 parison with which they were the greater offender, the 

 Italian hangman burned the pages which bore the English 

 rose. 



I have stated that Gilbert's physical researches were in- 

 tended to support the Copernican theory. This he sought 

 to do, not directly, but by founding upon his experiments 

 a so-called "magnetic" hypothesis, whereby he believed 

 that the earth's motion could be explained. A brief review 

 of this speculation is, at the outset, desirable. Afterwards 

 I shall note the unfavorable reception which it encoun- 

 tered, and the possible temporary disrepute of Gilbert's 

 entire work because of his errors concerning dip and varia- 

 tion. As resulting in the first great physical investiga- 

 tion, depending upon the inductive method, some consid- 

 eration of Gilbert's mode of philosophic thought is also 

 necessary : all of the foregoing being a prelude to the 

 review of the discoveries which underlie the modern 

 science of electricity. 



The fundamental arguments which Gilbert advances in 

 support of the heliocentric theory do not differ essentially 

 from those which had already become known among the 

 Continental philosophers. He regards the geocentric doc- 

 trine as best refuted by the suggestion of the immense 

 rapidity with which the spherical heavens must revolve 

 the extravagant whirling of the primum mobile if the 



