438 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



tween sand grains. As a cause it explained all of the 

 observed effects, and "more causes," said Newton senten- 

 tiously, "are not to be received into philosophy than are 

 sufficient to explain the appearances of nature." The 

 magnetic attraction of the earth, in any event, he regarded 

 as "very small and unknown." 1 To argue whether our 

 little globe governs its littler satellite by magnetism or 

 electricity or any other power, virtue, agency, or force, 

 became needless when the mode in which the Almighty 

 had ordered the mechanism of all worlds stood definitely 

 revealed. 



So vanished Gilbert's theory. The sun's 



"Magnetic beam, that gently warms 

 The universe and to each inward part, 

 With gentle penetration, though unseen 

 Shoots invisible virtue ev'n to the deep," 2 



gilded the pages of the great epic and then disappeared, 

 to return only in later days when light and electricity and 

 magnetism began to be as one. 



So Newton proved that whatever other influence elec- 

 tricity and magnetism may exert as cosmical forces, it is 

 not necessary to assume the action of either to account 

 for the motions of the planets. And as no one had 

 hitherto seen, for either, any other useful purpose except 

 the ordering of the heavenly bodies, it followed that this 

 left them with their "occupation gone;" a mere nebulous 

 cloud of facts and fancies gathered about the nucleus 

 which Gilbert had segregated from the pre-existing chaos. 

 But then, just as such a body a vagrant new-born world 

 perhaps finding itself within the control of a greater orb, 

 becomes under Newton's precepts a satellite, forever after 

 pursuing its orderly round in the celestial mechanism; so, 

 at his bidding, this unrelated mass of knowledge fell into 

 its appointed place and became obedient to the reign of 



J Principia, B. III., Prop xxxvii. 

 2 Paradise Lost, Book III. 



