CAB^US ON THE MAGNETIC SPECTUM. 353 



paths of those emanations leading, not from the magnet 

 centre, but from both poles. 



Thus, for the first time, the lodestone was made to write 

 its own story, and it was Cabaeus who first recognized, not 

 that filings erected themselves hair-like about a stone, for 

 Porta had done that, but that they grouped themselves in 

 a definite way, branching from the poles, making what we 

 now term the magnetic spectrum. 



Acute as he was, Cabaeus failed to see all that was thus 

 written for him. He did not perceive that the filings 

 curved from pole to pole. For him, they swept outward 

 in paths ending always like hairs in a brush, and thus he 

 depicts them. But there were two brushes; and that was 



' PICTURE OF THE MAGNETIC SPECTRUM. 1 



enough to dispose of Gilbert's notion and so to serve his 

 purpose. 



Cabseus is the very Mercutio of philosophers. He is 

 caustic and witty his dialectic sword is ready and needle- 

 pointed his mental agility is swift. He flits around Gil- 

 bert like a wasp, stinging wherever he can. But I shall 

 not follow him further, tempting as the task is. He may 

 be dismissed for bias. He was of course savagely anti- 

 Copernican. As a Jesuit he wrote to sustain Garzoni 

 against both Sarpi and Gilbert; and also in the same ca- 

 pacity, and with characteristic casuistry, he denied that 



1 From his Philosophia Magnetica, 1629. 

 23 



