GILBERT'S THEORY OF ELECTRIC ATTRACTION. 311 



tion very much as the Chinese Kouopho had done cen- 

 turies before as a breath proceeding from the electric and 

 reaching to the attracted object. But when he essays to 

 account for the actual movement of the latter, his explana- 

 tion is based, not on the observed behavior of the electric, 

 but on the gravitation of bodies or bubbles floating in water, 

 which he believes come together through some effect of the 

 liquid between them. Water, he considers, is a moist or 

 humid link between the bodies, and so is the electric 

 effluvium, although the last is much rarer, and all things 

 come together because of humor. He fails to perceive 

 that, even if the effluvia be regarded as material arms 

 which permeate the air without moving it and grasp 

 straws, etc., no explanation is thus afforded why or how 

 these arms draw the attracted object. 



Nevertheless, in his own mind, this theory was sufficient 

 for the differentiation which he sought. And he sums this 

 up finally by asserting that electric motion is one of matter 

 toward concretion, while magnetic motion is that of ar- 

 rangement and order ; and thus he assigns to electric 

 action the bringing and holding together of the materials 

 of the earth, while to magnetism he believes the verticity 

 or direction of the globe in space and also its rotation to 

 be due. Ultimately he attempts to distinguish the charac- 

 teristic natures of gravity, magnetism and electricity, while 

 suggesting their generic resemblance. By gravity, parts 

 of the earth are borne to it by natural inclination. By 

 magnetism, bodies are borne to one another mutually. 

 By electricity, corpuscles are carried to the electric. 



I have dwelt upon Gilbert's theories because they serve 

 to make clear the originality of the man in philosophic 

 thought, and the onward momentum which he gave to 

 it. Nor, if we are to accept the dicta of the apostle 

 of the inductive method, is Gilbert's merit any the less 

 because later and wiser generations may regard his specu- 

 lations as to the magnetic relation of the planets as mis- 

 taken. "Truth," says Bacon, "emerges more readily 



