386 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



tion at the corresponding letter in the arm of the other 

 person. 1 Van Helmont's story of the artificial nose belongs 

 to the same category. 



For such conceits as the flesh magnet and the sympathies 

 attributed thereto, Browne has no stomach. He regards 

 them all as u of that monstrosity that they refute them- 

 selves in their recitements. " But the two needles and their 

 alphabetical dials he evidently thinks are not to be dis- 

 posed of with mere expression of disbelief or even contempt. 

 There is a concreteness about that apparatus which makes 

 strongly for its toleration. It is very simple, and the needle 

 of the compass certainly does obey the earth from a long 

 distance, and go to certain marked indications on a card, 

 all of which are conditions closely allied to those in the 

 sympathetic dials. If Browne had lived before Gilbert, 

 he would have written a dissertation, very subtle and very 

 ingenious, no doubt, which would have demonstrated that, 

 from the nature of things and the canons of Aristotle and 

 the names commonly bestowed on the phenomena and sub- 

 stances involved, the whole alleged effect could not be. 

 But Gilbert had lived and passed away, and this thing 

 which "was whispered through the world with some at- 

 tention, credulous and vulgar auditors readily believing 

 it, and more judicious and distinctive heads not altogether 

 rejecting it," could not be satisfactorily dismissed in any 

 such manner. And therefore Browne, for the first time, 

 tested the sympathetic dials by actual experiment. 2 



"Having expressly framed two circles of wood," he says, 

 "and, according to the number of Latin letters, divided 



Fahie. A History of Elec. Telegy. to the year 1837. Lond., 1884, p. 

 19. An excellent bibliography of the early works on the subject is given 

 here on p. 20, See also 



Bertelli: Di un supposto sistema Telegrafico Magnetico . . . dei secoli 

 xvi. e x\ ii. Rome, 1868. 



2 Browne: Pseudodoxia Epidemica, cit. sup. 



