6o2 



NATURE 



[April 30, 1896 



mag-iietic phenomena, but to the men who studied them, 

 including the discovery of variation by Columbus, the 

 reasonings 'of Paracelsus as a speculator, and the work 

 of physicians as discoverers, he brings us at last, as 

 a necessity, to one of our first great Englishmen, William 

 Gilbert of Colchester. He gives a little sketch of the life 

 of William Gilbert, puts him down amongst the Fellows 

 of the Royal College of Physicians, and states that he 

 began to practise in London, establishing himself in a 

 house on St. Peter's Hill, between Upper Thames Street 

 and Little Knightrider Street. There Gilbert became a 

 famous man, and, as we know, became physician to 

 Queen Elizabeth, and was, it is said, the only man to 

 whom she left a legacy. To Gilbert, Benjamin gives, 

 naturally, a warm introduction and note of praise, and to 

 Gilbert's original work, " De Magnete," he assigns as 

 much credit as could be given by any one of the members 

 of the new society founded in honour of his name, and 

 which wishes to establish a monument to him in his 

 native city. He also notes Gilbert's doctrine on the sub 

 ject of the magnet, with his own criticism thereupon. 

 Gilbert seems to urge, that the direction in space is such 

 that the north pole of the earth constantly regards the 

 pole star, so that if that pole were turned aside from this 

 steadfast position it would go back thereto, from which it 

 is apparent, says Benjamin, "that this doctrine rests 

 upon the conclusion that the earth itself is a freely mov- 

 able magnet, having poles, and amenable to the same 

 laws as the compass needle." 



Gilbert is capable of many errors which Dr. Benjamin 

 is not slow to detect ; while he makes, we must admit, a 

 very fair and just statement or analysis of the work of 

 Gilbert, supplying plates from his " De Magnete," and is 

 very fair in reviewing the revelations of Bacon, who 

 recognised Gilbert's eminence as a philosopher and 

 discoverer. 



All this is extremely interesting, and a grand intro- 

 duction to the science of electricity as connected with the 

 magnet, and when we get into the account of the way in 

 which electric action and the discovery of electric 

 propulsion, especially in reference to the discoveries 

 of Cabasus on the magnetic spectrum, with Descartes' 

 observations on the magnetic field, we arrive at the 

 definite origin of electricity amongst English philo- 

 sophers and their colleagues, of many of whom Dr. 

 Benjamin has not the same knowledge, or, at all 

 events, does not show the same sympathies as we our- 

 selves do. We do not all consider, although his father 

 was executed, that Sir Kenelm Digby, for instance, 

 was an adventurer, conspirator, naval commander, and 

 diplomatist, as well as man of science ; neither do we 

 take the same view of Sir Thomas Browne that our 

 author seems to have taken, while, when we come to his 

 description of Stephen Gray, we are forced to differ from 

 him, in regard to his estimate of him, very sincerely. 

 According to our own view, electricity was altogether 

 chaotic as a science until this Charter House pensioner, 

 Stephen Gray, appeared before the world, and revealed 

 himself through the Royal Society. It was he who 

 discovered conduction, induction, insulation, and minor 

 thunder and lightning, and, indeed, almost all the basic 

 facts, without which electricity could never have become 

 a true science. 



NO. 1383, VOL. 53] 



The story about Stephen Gray is fairly told, but it is 

 far from complete, and should have tallied better with 

 Emerson's sentence which the author has inserted on 

 his title-page. 



" Not the fact, but so much of man as is in the fact." 

 Gray, indeed, was himself an evolution, small though 

 he may seem to have been to his contemporaries, and 

 with them was, perhaps, petulant. He was just as great as 

 Gilbert, and in any work on electricity deserves to be put 

 on a level with him. It was he who first truly set up the 

 electric telegraph, and, actually, between two and three 

 hundred years ago, sent messages by it over ground 

 which is still laid out in the front of an old mansion, 

 Otterden Manor, near to Faversham. It was he who 

 died relating to Mortimer, the Secretary of the Royal" 

 Society, his conviction that there was such a thing as an 

 electric planetarium in the universe, and it is to him and 

 his labours that we now owe the electric light which so 

 brilliantly illuminates our darkness. 



As we glance through the copious index with which 

 this volume is concluded, and see name after name written 

 down, for our edification, of men who have been engaged 

 in electrical pursuits, the temptation is very great to 

 follow Dr. Benjamin step by step, and to inquire on what 

 ground some men are named at length, while others— 

 Cavallo and Fowler, for example, are omitted altogether. 

 We are not surprised that he dwells so long and favour- 

 ably on one of his own countrymen, Franklin, whom we 

 in England do not certainly ignore, and whose electrical 

 knowledge is probably spoken of with an enthusiasm 

 which few electricians have received. We do not object 

 to the admirable picture of Franklin seated at his studies,, 

 which is given to us as a prelude to the sixteenth chapter, 

 but we do regret that there should be any omissions of 

 other men equally careful as Franklin, equally industrious, 

 and quite as original ; but we would not be severe with 

 an author who has natural predilections, like all of us, 

 and who is never wanting in industry. We would rather 

 look over every omission and every possible error, and 

 we commend our readers to place Dr. Benjamin's volume 

 on their shelves as a book of electrical philosophy which 

 cannot be too often read or too seriously studied. 



It has for many long years past been felt by the teacher 

 of electrical science, and we may add, by the learner 

 also, that the course cannot be considered complete 

 which does not include the beginnings as well as the 

 endings of electrical advances. It is too often felt by^ 

 those who teach, that it is necessary to deal solely with 

 what is actually going on, and we must admit that when 

 a professor stands at the lecture table with all the modern 

 apparatus before him, and with the hosts of modern facts 

 at his direct command, facts which he is anxious to 

 illustrate and demonstrate, the temptation is great for 

 him to confine himself to the subject immediately before 

 him, and to show how, out of simple principles, he can 

 explain some new and important truth or line of practice. 

 At the same time he rarely ventures on this path with- 

 out omitting, in the strangest way, a great deal of that 

 wonderful past which Dr. Benjamin has made such fine 

 attempts to describe. Of all words, again, we like the 

 title he has chosen— evolution. " Evolution" is as ap- 

 plicable to electricity as it is to man himself, and, to be 



