“ Aristotle affirms that not the whole universe is animate, but only the sky; but he maintains that its elements are inanimate; whilst the stars themselves are animate. We, however, find this life in globes only and in their homogenic parts; and though it is not the same in all globes (for it is much more eminent in the sun and in certain stars than in others of less nobility) yet in very many the lives of the globes agree in their powers. For each several homogenic part draws to its own globe in a similar manner, and has an inclination to the common direction of the whole in the universe ”

“ But those follies are old wives' gossip, and the rubbish of certain philosophizers, men who, when they essay to treat of the highest truths and the fabrick of the universe, and hazard anything, can scarce understand aught ultra crepidam. They would have the Earth to be the centre of a circle; and therefore to rest motionless amid the rotation. But neither the stars nor the wandering globes move about the Earth's centre: the high heaven also does not move circularly round the Earth's centre; nor if the Earth were in the centre, is it a centre itself, but a body around a centre. ”

“ Since the Earth herself would not choose to endure this so miserable and horrid appearance on both her faces, she, by her magnetick astral genius, revolves in an orbit, that by a perpetual change of light there may be a perpetual alternation of things, heat and cold, risings and settings, day and night, morn and eve, noon and midnight. ”

“ But the magnetick force of the earth and the formate life or living form of the globes, without perception, without error, without injury from ills and diseases, so present with us, has an implanted activity, vigorous through the whole material mass, fixed, constant, directive, executive, governing, consentient; by which the generation and death of all things are carried on upon the surface. For, without that motion, by which the daily revolution is performed, all earthly things around us would ever remain savage and neglected, and more than deserted and absolutely idle. ”

“ But as to the notion that surface inequality of mountains and valleys would prevent the Earth's diurnal revolution, there is nothing in it: for they do not mar the Earth's roundness, being but slight excrescences compared with the whole Earth; nor does the Earth revolve alone without its emanations. Beyond the emanations, there is no renitency. There is no more labour exerted in the Earth's motion than in the march of the rest of the Stars: nor is it excelled in dignity by some stars. ”

“ Ptolemy of Alexandria seems to be too timid and weak-minded in dreading the dissolution of this nether world, were the Earth to be moved round in a circle. Why does he not fear the ruin of the Universe, dissolution, confusion, conflagration, and infinite disasters celestial and super-celestial, from a motion transcending all thoughts, dreams, fables, and poetic licences, insurmountable, ineffable, and inconceivable? ”

“ For if among actual bodies one sees something move and breathe, and experience sensations, and be inclined and impelled by reason, will one not, knowing and seeing this, conclude that it is a man or something rather like a man, than that it is a stone or a stick? The loadstone far excels all other bodies known to us in virtues and properties pertaining to the common mother: but those properties have been far too little understood or realized by philosophers: for to its body bodies magnetical rush in from all sides and cleave to it, as we see them do in the case of the earth. ”

“ Bessard, the Frenchman, opines that a magnetick turns toward the pole of the zodiack. Marsilius Ficinus will have it that the loadstone follows its own Arctick pole; but that iron follows the loadstone, straws amber; whilst this perhaps follows the Antarctick pole—a most foolish dream. Others have recourse to I know not what magnetick rocks and mountains. Thus it is always customary with mortals, that they despise things near home, whilst foreign and distant things are dear and prized. But we study the earth itself and observe in it the cause of so great an effect. ”

“ Not all magnets can be properly called stones; some rather represent rocks; while others exist rather as metallick lodes; others as clods and lumps of earth. Thus varied and unlike each other, they are all endowed, some more, some less, with the peculiar virtue. For they vary according to the nature of the soil, the different admixture of clods and humours, having respect to the nature of the region and to their subsidence in this last-formed crust of the earth, resulting from the confluence of many causes, and the perpetual alternations of growth and decline, and the mutations of bodies. ”

“ Besides, to observe the altitude on both sides of the meridian is just as expeditious as to observe on one side only and at the same time to find the elevation of the pole. And he who can take one altitude by the instrument can also take another; but if the one altitude be uncertain, then all the labour with the globe, numbers, sines and triangles is lost; nevertheless those exercises of ingenious mathematicians are to be commended. It is easy for anyone, if he stand on land, to learn the variation by accurate observations and suitable instruments, especially in a nearly upright sphere ”

“ The substance of the terrestrial globe withstands and sets itself against universal nature. Aristotle feigns for himself a system of philosophy founded on motions simple and compound, that the heavens revolve in a simple circle, its elements moving with a right motion, the parts of the earth seeking the earth in straight lines, falling on its surface at right angles, and tending together toward its centre, always, however, at rest therein; accordingly also the whole Earth remains immovable in its place, united and compacted together by its own weight. ”

“ Or what is that mad force beyond the Primum Mobile? Since it is in bodies themselves that acting force resides, not in spaces or intervals. But he who thinks that those bodies are at leisure and keeping holiday, while all the virtue of the universe appertains to the very orbits and sphæres, is on this point not less mad than he who, in some one else's house, thinks that the walls and floors and roof rule the family rather than the wife and thoughtful paterfamilias. ”

“ The Earth is moved by her own primary form and natural desire, for the conservation, perfection, and ordering of its parts, toward things more excellent: and this is more likely than that the fixed stars, those luminous globes, as well as the Wanderers, and the most glorious and divine Sun, which are in no way aided by the Earth, or renewed, or urged by any virtue therein, should circulate aimlessly around the Earth, and that the whole heavenly host should repeat around the Earth courses never ending and of no profit whatever to the stars. ”

“ For if amber had moved towards its food, or if other bodies had inclined towards amber as towards provender, there would have been a diminution of the one which was devoured, just as there would have been a growth of the other which was sated. Then why should an attractive force of fire be looked for in amber? If the attraction existed from heat, why should not very many other bodies also attract, if warmed by fire, by the sun, or by friction? ”

“ For although the terrestrial globe, owing to the varied humours and natures of the soil arising from the continual succession of growth and decay, is in the lapse of time efflorescing through all its ambit deeper into its surface, and is girt about with a varied and perishable covering, as it were with a veil; yet out of her womb ariseth in many places an offspring nigher to the more perfect body and makes its way to the light of day. But the weak and less vigorous loadstones, enfeebled by the flow of humours, are visible in every region, in every strath. ”

“ But a loadstone itself, by being rubbed on another, whether a larger or a more powerful stone, is not disturbed from its own property and verticity, nor does it turn round toward the opposite direction in its boat, or to the other pole opposite to that to which it inclines by its own nature and implanted verticity. For strength which is innate and has been implanted for a very long time abides more firmly, nor does it easily yield from its ancient holding; and that which has grown for a long time is not all of a sudden brought to nothing, without the destruction of the substance containing it. ”

“ For the Sun himself being the agent and incitor of the universe in motion, other wandering globes set within the range of his forces, when acted on and stirred, also regulate each its own proper courses by its own forces; and they are turned about in periods corresponding to the extent of their greater rotation, and the differences of their effused forces, and their intelligence for higher good. ”

“ Wherefore we are carried along by a diurnal rotation of the earth (a motion for sure more congruous) , and as a boat moves above the waters, so do we turn about with the earth, and yet seem to ourselves to be stationary, and at rest. Great and incredible it seems to some philosophers, by reason of inveterate prejudice, that the Earth's vast body should be swirled wholly round in the space of 24 hours. But it would be more incredible that the Moon should travel through her orbit, or complete an entire course in a space of 24 hours ”

“ Miserable were the condition of the stars, abject the lot of the earth, if that wonderful dignity of life be denied to them, which is conceded to worms, ants, moths, plants, and toadstools; for thus worms, moths, grubs would be bodies more honoured and perfect in nature; for without life no body is excellent, valuable, or distinguished. ”

“ But the Earth is not a Chaos nor disordered mass; but by reason of its astral virtue, it has boundaries which subserve the circular motion, poles not mathematical, an æquator not devised by imagination, meridians also and parallels; all of which we find permanent, certain and natural in the Earth: which by numerous experiments the whole magnetick philosophy sets forth. For in the earth there are poles set in fixed bounds, and at them the verticity mounts up on either side from the plane of the Earth's æquator, with forces which are mightier and præpotent from the common action of the whole ”

“ But we maintain that the true earth is a solid substance, homogeneous with the globe, closely coherent, endowed with a primordial and (as in the other globes of the universe) with a prepotent form; in which position it persists with a fixed verticity, and revolves with a necessary motion and an inherent tendency to turn, and it is this constitution, when true and native, and not injured or disfigured by outward defects, that the loadstone possesses above all bodies apparent to us, as if it were a more truly homogenic part taken from the earth. ”

“ Ptolemy's reasonings are of no weight; for when our true principles are laid down, the truth comes to light, and it is superfluous to refute them. Let Costæus recognize and philosophers see how unfruitful and vain a thing it becomes then to take one's stand on the principles and unproved opinions of certain ancients. Some raise a doubt how it can be that, if the Earth move round its own axis, a globe of iron or of lead dropped from the highest point of a tower falls exactly perpendicularly to a spot of the Earth below itself. ”

“ The Sun (the chief agent in nature) as he forwards the courses of the Wanderers, so does he prompt this turning about of the Earth by the diffusion of the virtues of his orbes, and of light. And if the Earth were not made to spin with a diurnal revolution, the Sun would ever hang over some determinate part with constant beams, and by long tarriance would scorch it, and pulverize it, and dissipate it, and the Earth would sustain the deepest wounds ”

“ But what the Chemists (as Geber, and others) call fixed earthy sulphur in iron is nothing else than the homogenic earth-substance concreted by its own humour, amalgamated with a double fluid: a metallick humour is inserted along with a small quantity of the substance of the earth not devoid of humour. Wherefore the common saying that in gold there is pure earth, but in iron mostly impure, is wrong; as though there were indeed such a thing as natural earth, and that the globe itself were (by some unknown process of refining) depurate. ”

“ We have before said that all the motions of the magnet and iron, all its turning, its inclination, and its settlement, proceed from bodies themselves magnetical and from their common mother the earth, which is the source, the propagatrix, and the origin of all these qualities and properties. ”

“ It has been repeatedly shown above that iron not excited by a stone turns north and south; further that it has verticity, that is, special and peculiar polar distinctions, just as a loadstone, or iron which has been rubbed upon a loadstone. This indeed seemed to us at first wonderful and incredible; the metal of iron from the mine is smelted in the furnace; it runs out of the furnace, and hardens into a great mass; this mass is divided in great worksteads, and is drawn into iron bars, from which smiths again construct many instruments and necessary pieces of iron-work. ”

“ But since iron is more like iron than loadstone, and the virtue in both pieces of iron is exalted by the proximity of the loadstone, so in the loadstone itself, in case of equal strength, likeness of substance prevails, and iron gives itself up rather to iron, and they are united by their very similar homogenic powers. Which thing happens not so much from a coition, as from a firmer unition; and a knob or snout of steel, fixed skilfully on the pole of the stone, raises greater weights of iron than the stone of itself could. ”

“ A terrella sends out in an orbe its powers in proportion to its vigour and quality. But when iron or any other magnetick of convenient magnitude comes within its orbe of virtue, it is allured; but the nearer it comes to the body, the more quickly it runs up to it. They move towards the magnet, not as * to a centre, nor towards its centre. For they only do this in the case of the poles themselves, when namely that which is being allured, and the pole of the loadstone, and its centre, are in the same straight line. ”

“ It is plain to all, and all admit, that the mass of the earth, or rather the structure and crust of the earth, consists of a twofold material, namely, of fluid and humid matter, and of material of more consistency and dry. ”

“ The principle of the turning of all loadstones, of those which are round and those which are long, is the same, but in the case of the long ones the experiment is easier. For in whatever form they are the verticity exists, and there are poles; but on account of bad and unequal form, they are often hindered by certain evils. If the stone were long, the vertex is at the ends, not on the sides; it allures more strongly at the vertex. For the parts bring together stronger forces to the pole in right lines than oblique. So the stone and the earth conform their magnetick motions by their nature. ”

“ Our philosophers were only dreaming when they spoke of a kind of simple and inert matter. Cardan does not consider the loadstone to be any kind of stone, "but a sort of perfected portion of some kind of earth that is absolute; a token of which is its abundance, there being no place where it is not found. And there is" (he says) "a power of iron in the wedded Earth which is perfect in its own kind when it has received fertilizing force from the male, that is to say, the stone of Hercules" (in his book De Proportionibus) . ”

“ The ingenious Fracastorio, a distinguished philosopher, in seeking the reason for the direction of the loadstone, feigns Hyperborean magnetick mountains attracting magnetical things of iron: this view, which has found acceptance in part by others, is followed by many authors and finds a place not in their writings only, but in geographical tables, marine charts, and maps of the globe: dreaming, as they do, of magnetick poles and huge rocks, different from the poles of the earth. ”