Page:On the Magnet - Gilbert (1900 translation of 1600 work).djvu/29

 sung; Or as Albertus Magnus teaches, that there are two kinds of loadstones, one which points to the North, the other to the South: Or that iron is directed toward the Northern stars by an influence imparted by the polar stars, even as plants follow the sun, as Heliotrope does: Or that there is a magnet-stone situated under the tail of the Greater Bear, as Lucas Gauricus the Astrologer stated: He would even assign the loadstone, like the Sardonyx and onyx, to the planet Saturn, yet at the same time he assigns it with the adamant, Jasper, and Ruby, to Mars; so that it is ruled by two planets. The loadstone moreover is said by him to pertain to the sign Virgo; and he covers many such shameful pieces of folly with a veil of mathematical erudition. Such as that an image of a bear is engraved on a loadstone when the Moon faces towards the north, so that when hung by an iron wire it may conciliate the influence of the celestial Bear, as Gaudentius Merula relates: Or that the loadstone drew iron and directed it to the north, because it is superior in rank to iron, at the Bear, as Ficinus writes, and Merula repeats: Or that by day it has a certain power of attracting iron, but by night the power is feeble, or rather null: Or that when weak and dulled the virtue is renewed by goats' blood, as Ruellius writes: Or that Goats' blood sets a loadstone free from the venom of a diamond, so that the lost power is revived when bathed in goats' blood by reason of the discord between that blood and the diamond: Or that it removed sorcery from women, and put to flight demons, as Arnaldus de Villanova dreams: Or that it has the power to reconcile husbands to their wives, or to recall brides to their husbands, as Marbodeus Gallus, chorus-leader of vanities, teaches: Or that in a loadstone pickled in the salt of a sucking fish there is power to pick up gold which has fallen into the deepest wells, according to the narratives of Cælius Calcagninus. With such idle tales and trumpery do plebeian philosophers delight themselves and satiate readers greedy for hidden things, and unlearned devourers of absurdities: But after the magnetick nature shall have been disclosed by the discourse that is to follow, and perfected by our labours and experiments, then will the hidden and abstruse causes of so great an effect stand out, sure, proven, displayed and demonstrated; and at the same time all darkness will disappear, and all error will be torn up by the roots and will lie unheeded; and the foundations of a grand magnetick philosophy which have been laid will appear anew, so that high intellects may be no further mocked by idle opinions. Some learned men there are who in the course of long voyages have observed the differences of magnetick variation: the most scholarly Thomas Hariot, Robert Hues, Edward Wright, Abraham Kendall, all Englishmen; Others there are who have invented and produced magnetical instruments, and ready methods of observation, indispensable for sailors and to those travelling afar: