Page:On the Magnet - Gilbert (1900 translation of 1600 work).djvu/67



IVERS things concerning opinions about the magnet-stone, and its variety, concerning its poles and its known faculties, concerning iron, concerning the properties of iron, concerning a magnetick substance common to both of these and to the earth itself, have been spoken briefly by us in the former book. There remain the magnetical motions, and their fuller philosophy, shown and demonstrated. These motions are incitements of homogeneal parts either among themselves or toward the primary conformation of the whole earth. Aristotle admits only two simple motions of his elements, from the centre and toward the centre; of light ones upward, heavy ones downward; so that in the earth there exists one motion only of all its parts towards the centre of the world,—a rude and inert precipitation. But what of it is light, and how wrongly it is inferred by the Peripateticks from the simple motion of the elements, and also what is its heavy part, we will discuss elsewhere. But now our inquiry must be into the causes of other motions, depending on its true form, which we have plainly seen in our magnetick bodies; and these we have seen to be present in the earth and in all its homogenic parts also. We have noticed that they harmonize with the earth, and are bound up with its forces. Five movements or differences of motions are then observed by us: Coition (commonly called attraction), the in-