Page:On the Magnet - Gilbert (1900 translation of 1600 work).djvu/168

 the parts united; and the verticity or the pole is not a virtue innate in one part, or in some definite limit, or fixed in the substance; but it is an inclination of the virtue to that part. And just as a terrella separated from the earth has no longer the earth's poles and æquator, but individual ones of its own; so also if it again be divided, those limits and distinctions of the qualities and virtues pass on to other parts. But if a loadstone be divided in any way, either along a parallel, or meridionally, so that by the change of shape either the poles or the æquator move to other positions, if the part cut off be merely applied in its natural position and joined to the whole, even without any agglutination or cementing together, the determining points of the virtues return again to their former sites, as if no part of the body had been cut off. When a body is entire, its form remains entire; but when the body is lessened, a new whole is made, and there arises a new entirety, determined for every loadstone, however small, even for magnetick gravel, and for the finest sand.

OW although the southern end of a magnetick iron is attracted by a northern end, and repelled by a southern, yet the southern portion of a stone does not diminish, but increases the potency of the boreal part. Wherefore if a stone be cut in two and divided through the arctick circle, or through the tropick of Cancer or the æquator, the southern portion does not attract magnetick substances so strongly with its pole as before; because a new whole arises, and the æquator is removed from its old position and moves forward on account of that cutting of the stone. In the former condition, since the opposite portion of the stone increases the mass beyond the plane of the æquator, it strengthens also the verticity, and the potency, and the motion to unity.