280 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



He cites Porta more than any one else, Cardan next and 

 then Fracastorio, mainly to exhibit their errors; but he 

 draws freely upon Porta, for example, in stating the rela- 

 tions of divided lodestones and the behavior of magnetic 

 bodies in the field of force, and upon Cardan for differentia- 

 tion between lodestone and amber. If, by chance, he 

 happens to express a favorable opinion of these philoso- 

 phers, he always manages afterwards to reverse it. He be- 

 gins by calling Porta a philosopher of no ordinary note, 

 and ends by denouncing his statements as the maunder- 

 ings of a babbling crone. Fracastorio is an ingenious phil- 

 osopher and also a reckless speculator. As regards Cardan, 

 the importance of whose brilliant differentiation of lode- 

 stone and amber we have already seen, Gilbert is at least 

 consistent, for he never permits himself any praise at all 

 of the famous Milanese, who he asserts reasoned solely on 

 the basis of vague and indecisive experiments. And as 

 for the other philosophers, whether writers on medicine, 

 or on navigation, or on astronomy, ancient or modern, 

 Platonist or Peripatetic, charlatans, such as Paracelsus, or 

 scholars, however of learned repute, all are included in 

 censure and often abuse, which last perhaps reaches its 

 lowest level in a bitter anathema against Taisnier, the 

 plagiarist of Peregrinus; although, from one point of view, 

 it may be urged that the only difference between Taisnier 

 and Gilbert himself is that Gilbert's plagiarisms from the 

 same source are much the more complete and accurate. 



The sole exception to be found in this wholesale con- 

 demnation is an accordance of honor to Aristotle, Theo- 

 phrastus, Ptolemy, Hippocrates and Galen, whence he 

 says came the stream of wisdom, and who, he is per- 



marvel at the philosopher Aristotle, that did proceed in such a spirit of 

 difference and contradiction toward all antiquity; undertaking not only 

 to frame new words of science at pleasure, but to confound and extin- 

 guish all ancient wisdom; insomuch as he never nameth or mentioneth 

 an ancient author or opinion but to confute and reprove : wherein for 

 glory and drawing followers and disciples he took the right course." 

 Advt. of Learning, B. 2, c. viii., 2. Bacon himself did the same. 



