302 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



matters that are genuinely hidden, and which must be 

 identified somehow in speech, by marks which enable 

 them to become the subjects of discourse, Gilbert has no 

 hesitation in naming them, and the orbs u of virtue" and 

 41 of coition" already alluded to, are instances of such des- 

 ignations. These, with something of the same care which 

 is found in the definitions of terms used in a modern Brit- 

 ish Act of Parliament, he groups together and elucidates 

 in a separate and commendably brief glossary prefixed to 

 his De Magnete. 



The discovery of many substances partaking of the 

 amber quality raised at once the need of a generic term 

 including and fairly describing all, by which they might 

 be spoken of and thought about without repetition and 

 circumlocution. The property which all had in com- 

 mon was that of attracting corpuscles. And this attrac- 

 tion was not similar to that of the lodestone, but similar 

 to that of the amber : similar, because, whatever its true 

 cause might be, it was certainly ostensibly exerted in like 

 manner to the amber attraction. Gilbert's treatise being 

 in L,atin, he frequently translates the English word 

 "amber" by the Latin "electrum" a derivative from 

 the Greek ^m-pov and, on this basis, originates the term 

 for the new genus. The word which he so coins is 

 "Electrica" translatable as " electrics "which he de- 

 fines as signifying u quae attrahunt eadem ratione ut elec- 

 trum" (those substances which attract in the same manner 

 as the amber). Thus the father of the science by right 

 of paternity gave to it its name ; for the subsequently- 

 invented word "electricity" simply refers to the condition 

 or state prevailing in an electric. 1 



I have now to outline the course of Gilbert's experi- 

 menting and the principal results which he achieved. 

 Trying his electrics on many different substances, he soon 

 reaches the conclusion that they will all attract, not only 



1 Further on I have noted the origin of other similarly derived words 

 such as "electrical," etc. 



