PHILIPPUS THEOPHRASTUS PARACELSUS BOMBAST: Doctor of both medicines / on the magnet / and its wonderful virtue.

On the working and powers of the magnet.

First, it is necessary to give you general instruction on how there is an attractive power in the magnet, such that it wonderfully draws to itself, beyond all natural understanding, iron, steel, and much more. Now, my argument at this time is that such a power in the magnet, which has lain so openly before the eyes of all physicians and has not been considered further—as to whether it might be used for other necessities or not—has been neglected by all physicians. They have relied more on their kitchen-gossip, which cannot be well justified with honor, because they should have such a subject a physical object to study and see its effect openly, yet they do not proceed with it toward further experience. For even if I set down all the virtues that the ancients have written about the magnet, I have not yet written; rather, I want to write about the magnet. It is necessary that I proceed with addition and correction, and leave them the ancients all behind, letting them follow slowly thereafter.

It is often cast in my face, especially by the lousy Doctors and Apothecaries who understand no more, that I do not want to follow the ancient writers. But what should I follow of the unfounded? For look only at the magnet; what they write of it is as much as nothing. Look at what I write, and lay them against each other on the scale. Had I not given myself to experience, I would have been born stone blind from the ancients, and would be without eyes in medicine. But since I do not follow them, but seek more, it is not necessary to follow them, for