284 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



he says, neither is it generated thereby through sympathy, 

 or influence, or other occult qualities: neither is it drawn 

 from any special star; but the earth has its own proper 

 magnetic vigor or Form, just as sun and moon have theirs. 

 Consequently, as a fragment of the sun would arrange 

 itself under solar laws to conform to the shape and ver- 

 ticity of the sun, or a fragment of the moon under lunar 

 laws to conform to the shape and verticity of the moon, so 

 a fragment of the earth under terrestrial laws, being en- 

 dowed with the same magnetic vigor or Form, will dispose 

 itself correspondingly to the earth. Now as a lodestone is 

 not merely a fragment of the earth, but is of the inmost 

 earth and possesses the primal Form of things terrestrial 

 and the whole impetus of magnetic Matter, therefore 

 it has the fixed verticity, and the innate whirling motion 

 of revolution, inherent to the earth. 



The notion that the lodestone is both a fragment of the 

 earth and is polarized by induction therefrom, is not incon- 

 sistent with modern ideas; but that of the earth rotating 

 because of its magnetic quality reduces itself, as I have 

 already pointed out, to mere guess-work and to proof of 

 the strength with which the speculative tendency asserts 

 itself, even in a mind which repudiated u probable con- 

 jectures" as a basis of reasoning, and despite the belief 

 that it recognized no control save that of "sure experiment 

 and demonstrated argument." 



Not only does Gilbert explain the existence of magnet- 

 ism through the Peripatetic conceptions of Matter and 

 Form the last, as we have seen, somewhat modified in 

 particulars but he recurs, ultimately, to the same source 

 for ground-work for interpretations of special magnetic 

 phenomena. Aristotle applies the term "nature" to a 

 constant which perpetually tends to renovate Forms as per- 

 fect as may be, and invariably acts in a uniform way, pro- 

 ducing phenomena which are regular and predictable. 

 In opposition to nature stands variability or chance, 

 which interferes with and impedes the work; so that, 



