THE AMBER QUESTION. 295 



The other possible criticism was, however, more serious^ 

 and immediately pressing. Gilbert knew that ostensibly 

 at least it was well founded: he knew that the difficulties 

 involved must be met and overcome, or avoided simultan- 

 eously with the presentation of his main argument, and he 

 knew that anything less than complete destruction or 

 avoidance of them would inevitably result in his own con- 

 fusion. 



The peril which thus menaced him came from an un- 

 solved problem of the ages: the same which had vexed 

 Thales twenty-two centuries before; the same which had 

 persisted to mystify men's souls ever since; the riddle of 

 the Amber Sphinx, which now, Oedipus-like, he must 

 solve, or fall. 



Let us recall two facts: first, that the world in general 

 classed the amber and the magnet together, and saw no 

 difference in their respective attractions upon other bodies; 

 and second, that Cardan, nevertheless, had drawn a clear 

 distinction between them and had contrasted their be- 

 havior. With the popular opinion and with that of Car- 

 dan, Gilbert was fully familiar. He saw that the effect of 

 the first would be at once to lead people to attempt to 

 apply his magnetic theories to the amber attraction, while 

 that of the second was an authoritative impress upon his 

 own mind of reasons why the discovery of discrepancies 

 would follow. Granting, for example (he perhaps argued 

 to himself), that the magnet and the amber are alike in 

 attractive power, they are not so in verticity; and, if the 

 attractive capacity shows that both contain the same 

 assumed primordial terrene Matter, how is it that the Form 

 which determines self-direction in the one is absent in the 

 other? What is this primordial Matter which can exhibit 

 such totally different physical characteristics as are seen in 

 the light and brilliant resin and the heavy and dark stone? 

 Even if the Form be the same, is the Matter identical in 

 both? If verticity is absent in the amber, is this because 

 the latter is an ''efflorescence" and hence "impaired" 



