The Magnetic Art

existence, which we can call the primary and radical, and astral form; such is one in individual globes, the sun, the moon, and the stars, just as it is in the earth, which is that magnetic power which we call the primary vigor, which is proper to the earth and implanted in its truer parts by nature. This is not derived from the whole heaven, nor at all through sympathy, or more occult qualities, or any peculiar star. For there is its own magnetic vigor in the earth, just as there are its own forms in the sun and moon, and a fragment of the moon composes itself lunarly to its limits and form; and the solar to the sun, just as the magnet to the earth, and to another magnet, by inclining and alluring itself according to nature. Thus the magnet recalls and disposes iron, which is familiar to it, toward the formed vigor, for which it rushes to the magnet and greedily conforms itself, with mutual forces concordantly promoting."

Thus far Gilbert. We explain this not badly by an innate appetite, which is nothing other than a certain natural propensity and inclination of any thing toward its own good, which in passive powers is a natural capacity and proportion with its own perfection, or with its own act. In active ones, however, it is the natural faculty of acting itself, and it adds nothing beyond nature itself, except that it connotes and requires certain dispositions and conditions. As Suarez, tom. 1, Metaphysics, disp. 6, no. 3, and Murcia, book 3 on the soul; and thus far concerning the first foundation of the magnetic art.

THEOREM II.

That virtue of the magnet is also rare, that it always has two opposite poles; for just as mathematicians establish two poles of every sphere moving in the sky, so in our two-poled magnet, one which conforms itself to the arctic, the other which conforms itself to the antarctic, are observed as the primary termini of motions and effects, and besides, the limits and moderators of many virtues constituted by nature, of which thing take this experiment.