278 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



better adapted for experimental purposes. This miniature 

 earth he calls an earthkin or terrella, and upon this he 

 makes his experiments, mainly by placing near to it 

 pivoted iron needles or iron plates, and noting the direc- 

 tive or attractive force exerted by the globe. 



The close similarity of this course to that followed by 

 Peregrinus will at once be apparent. But Peregrinus re- 

 garded his spherical magnet as a miniature representative 

 of the celestial sphere: Gilbert regarded it not merely as 

 a representative of the spherical earth, but actually as the 

 earth ; in the sense that it was physically a fragment 

 thereof, possessing, though in less degree, the same poten- 

 cies and energies. Peregrinus considered the magnetized 

 needle as influenced by the poles of the spherical heavens 

 represented in the lodestone globe : Gilbert, by the actual 

 poles of the small spherical lodestone, in precisely the 

 same way as by the actual poles of a greater spherical 

 lodestone namely, the earth. 



Yet undeniably both Peregrinus and Gilbert performed 

 exactly the same experiment and with the same thing. 

 Natural phenomena are not changed by the names men 

 give them, and whether the lodestone globe be regarded 

 as a miniature earth or a miniature heavenly sphere cannot 

 alter in the slightest either the nature of the object or the 

 effects produced by it. I may even go further and, as I 

 have already suggested in discussing the experiments of 

 Peregrinus, point out that the analogy of the lodestone 

 globe to the earth may, from Peregrinus' language, be 

 fairly inferred as not unperceived by him. But, there is 

 all the difference in the world between approximating a 

 result, however nearly, and actually attaining it; while 

 there is no argument more frequently specious and hence 

 more perilous than that which seeks to establish conclu- 

 sions as foregone after the event. Granting that Pere- 

 grinus perceived an analogy between his globular lodestone 

 and the earth he did not see them as one and the same 

 thing differing only in magnitude. Gilbert did: he made 



