298 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



rub the diamond itself not to rub iron with the diamond 

 and the attraction thus produced could not be explained 

 away by inconsequent suggestions that Porta had been mis- 

 led by a similarity in names, and had confused adamas, the 

 diamond, with adamas, the lodestone. Besides, however 

 much Gilbert might flout Cardan, or refute Porta, there re- 

 mained the clear statement of Fracastorio, whom he knew 

 to be neither a charlatan nor a mere transcriber, but, on the 

 contrary, a philosopher of commanding eminence and fame. 



In the end Gilbert probably rubbed some of his seventy- 

 five diamonds and found Cardan and Fracastorio to be 

 right. But, as he was not seeking to establish their re- 

 putations, he did not trouble himself to record the fact, but 

 left the famous Italians pilloried with the other philoso- 

 phers as u word-mongers " and "chattering barbers" a 

 species of comparative vituperation which came not unread- 

 ily from the student of Vesalius and Fallopius, already over- 

 flowing with fine scorn for the blood-letting and tooth- 

 drawing knights of the lather and basin, who in England 

 were contesting the right to practice surgery with the reg- 

 ular professors of the healing art. 



The great point gained was not perception of the fact 

 that something else beside amber would attract in the 

 same way, but the proof of it. The immediately following 

 questions were: are there any other substances having this 

 same capability? If so, how many? Are they so few that 

 the behavior of all can be lightly explained away as a 

 lusus natures, and the general hypothesis so saved? Are 

 they so numerous and of such importance that another 

 theory, not inconsistent with the first, may be predicated, 

 which will subsist concurrently by satisfying the peculiar 

 physical conditions of the amber and its cognates, while 

 not extending to the great cosmical application of the 

 magnetic hypothesis? Are they so overwhelmingly many 

 as to destroy the cosmic theory in toto by reducing its 

 magnetic foundation to insignificance. 



These, or like questions, I believe, led to the first delib- 



