338 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



person of Mark Ridley, he rose in arms. It is of no 

 moment to him that Ridley tells the world nothing more 

 than Gilbert had already told it a dozen years earlier, and 

 that he is merely attacking, at too late a date, Gilbert over 

 Ridley's shoulders. He disputes Ridley in toto; and thus 

 begins the first of the many controversies which have in- 

 volved every material discovery and invention in electrical 

 science. 



Little is known about Ridley beyond his own descrip- 

 tion of himself on his title page as u Doctor in physicke 

 and Philosophic, Latly Physition to the Kmperour of 

 Russia and one of ye eight principals or Elects of the Col- 

 ledge of Physitions in London;" but his book is remark- 

 able for its peculiarly practical advice and for the recom- 

 mendation, in the preface, that the reader should provide 

 himself with "such like forms of Magnets as I have de- 

 scribed ... as also of needles, wiers and waights of iron 

 and steel," upon the procurement of which "then them 

 mayest read and practice the operations and demonstra- 

 tions of this book." 



There is a vast difference between this counsel, followed 

 by pages of detailed instructions and pictures, and the 

 apology which, not very many years before, prefaced Rob- 

 ert Norman's work. There it was feared that magnetic 

 matters "may be said by the learned in the mathemati- 

 cal les " to be u no question or matter for Mechanician or 

 Mariner to meddle with," and it was begged that they 

 u do not disdainefully condemne men that will search out 

 the secrets of their Artes and Professions and publish the 

 same to the use and behoofe of others." 



Ridley's treatise, in the main, however, is in substance 

 but an amplified review of most of the magnetic experi- 

 ments which Gilbert records in the De Magnete. The 

 Copernican doctrine is accepted somewhat hesitatingly, 

 and with less reservation Gilbert's affirmation of the mag- 

 netic nature of the globe. 



As allusion is also made to his cosmical notions, includ- 



