2Q4 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



had been suggested, but not yet proved, should be ad- 

 mitted or not." It was to sustain his cosmical theory that 

 Gilbert accomplished the achievements which will render 

 him forever known as the father of electrical science. 

 What he did, and how he did it, I have now to relate. 



Gilbert's cosmical system is based, as I have endeavored 

 to show, upon his own application of the results of his ex- 

 periments to the Copernican doctrine. It was open, there- 

 fore, to his opponents to attack him either by disputing 

 the sufficiency of his experiments, or by showing that there 

 were other phenomena similar to those of the magnet, and 

 presumably of like nature, which could not be accounted 

 for by his explanations, and hence that the latter fell short 

 of universal application and so failed to satisfy the condi- 

 tions of the problem to be solved. Naturally the assault 

 would be directed upon the new and specific support pro- 

 vided by him for the Copernican heresy rather than upon 

 the theory itself, against which the forces of the prevail- 

 ing theology and philosophy were already turned; and this, 

 it may be fairly presumed, no one appreciated and per- 

 ceived the need for anticipating better than did Gilbert 

 himself. 



Of the two before-noted objections, that which went to 

 the sufficiency of the experiments was the least to be 

 feared, for he could point to such a multiplicity of tests 

 and practically did so, marking the records of some two 

 hundred of the principal ones by asterisks on the margins 

 of his pages for the express purpose of attracting attention 

 to them that in those days, when from the slenderest 

 physical occurrence unbounded speculation often flowed, 

 it would require a more than ordinarily bold disputant to 

 challenge the thoroughness and exhaustive quality of his 

 work. As a matter of fact, as we shall see later on, such 

 an antagonist did arise ; but this was years after Gilbert's 

 voice had become forever silent. 



