by William Gilbert

Name: On the Magnet — Book II. Chap. 3.
Author: by William Gilbert

On the Magnet — Book II. Chap. 3… (1900)

Summary

“On the Magnet — Book II. Chap. 3.”, published in 1900, is a work by by William Gilbert. It explores elements such as loadstone, iron and attraction.

Quotes from On the Magnet — Book II. Chap. 3… (by William Gilbert)

by William Gilbert, On the Magnet — Book II. Chap. 3… (1900)

“ But iron itself, when excited by a loadstone, seizes iron no less strongly than the loadstone. Therefore those fights, seditions, and conspiracies in the stone, as if it were nursing up perpetual quarrels, whence it might seek auxiliary forces, are the ravings of a babbling old woman, not the inventions of a distinguished mage. Others have lit upon sympathy as the cause. There may be fellow-feeling, and yet the cause is not fellow-feeling; for no passion can rightly be said to be an efficient cause. Others hold likeness of substance, many others insensible rays as the cause ”

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Source: Wikisource

by William Gilbert, On the Magnet — Book II. Chap. 3… (1900)

“ In that body there is more of the stone than of iron; and therefore the iron, that it may not be subdued by the stone, desires the force and company of iron; that being not able to resist alone, it may be able by more help to defend itself.... The Loadstone draws not stones, because it wants them not, for there is stone enough in the body of it; and if one Loadstone draw another, it is not for the stone, but for the iron that is in it." As if in the loadstone the iron were a distinct body and not mixed up as the other metals in their ores! ”

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Source: Wikisource

by William Gilbert, On the Magnet — Book II. Chap. 3… (1900)

“ Cardan asks why no other metal is attracted by any other stone; because (he replies) no metal is so cold as iron; as if indeed cold were the cause of the attraction, or as if iron were much colder than lead, which neither follows nor is deflected towards a loadstone. But that is a chilly story, and worse than an old woman's tale. So also is the notion that the loadstone is alive and that iron is its food. But how does the loadstone feed on the iron, when the filings in which it is kept are neither consumed nor become lighter? ”

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Source: Wikisource

by William Gilbert, On the Magnet — Book II. Chap. 3… (1900)

“ For he would have it that "there is mutual work and mutual result, and therefore the motion is partly due to the attraction of the loadstone and partly to a spontaneous movement on the part of the iron: For as we say that vapours issuing from the loadstone hasten by their own nature to attract the iron, so also the air repelled by the vapours, whilst seeking a place for itself, is turned back, and when turned back, it impels the iron, lifts it up, as it were, and carries it along; the iron being of itself also excited somehow. ”

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Source: Wikisource

by William Gilbert, On the Magnet — Book II. Chap. 3… (1900)

“ The followers of Galen (who hold that purgative medicaments attract because of similitude of substance) say that bodies are attracted on account of similitude, not identity, of substance; wherefore the loadstone draws iron, but iron does not draw iron. But we declare and prove that this happens in primary bodies, and in those bodies that are pretty closely related to them and especially like in kind one to another, on account of their identity; wherefore also loadstone draws loadstone and likewise iron iron; every really true earth draws earth ”

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Source: Wikisource

by William Gilbert, On the Magnet — Book II. Chap. 3… (1900)

“ Epicurus holds that iron is attracted by a loadstone just as straws by amber; "and," he adds, "the Atoms and indivisible particles which are given off by the stone and by the iron fit one another in shape; so that they easily cling to one another; when therefore these solid particles of stone or of iron strike against one another, then they rebound into space, being brought against one another by the way, and they draw the iron along with them." ”

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Source: Wikisource

by William Gilbert, On the Magnet — Book II. Chap. 3… (1900)

“ Galen does not know why Plato should have seen fit to select the theory of circumpulsion rather than that of attraction (differing almost on this point alone from Hippocrates) , though indeed it does not agree in reality with either reason or experiment. Nor indeed is either the air or anything else circumpelled; and the bodies themselves which are attracted are carried towards the attracting substance not confusedly, or in an orbe. ”

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Source: Wikisource

by William Gilbert, On the Magnet — Book II. Chap. 3… (1900)

“ First, then, know, Ceaseless effluvia from the magnet flow,— Effluvia, whose superior powers expel The air that lies between the stone and steel. A vacuum formed, the steely atoms fly In a link'd train, and all the void supply ”

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Source: Wikisource

by William Gilbert, On the Magnet — Book II. Chap. 3… (1900)

“ So by being drawn out and by a spontaneous motion, and by striking against another substance, there is in some way produced a composite motion, which motion would nevertheless be rightly referred to attraction, because the terminus from which this motion invariably begins is the same terminus at which it ends, which is the characteristic proper of an attraction." There is certainly a mutual action, not an operation, nor does the loadstone attract in that way ”

by William Gilbert

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Quotes from On the Magnet — Book II. Chap. 3… (by William Gilbert)

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