A rectangular decorative woodcut headpiece featuring symmetrical ornate scrolls, acanthus leaves, and floral motifs.

OF THE MAGNETIC

DISQUISITION

PART I.

THE THEOREMATIC DECADE.

Large decorative woodcut initial 'M' with floral patterns.
MAGNET, that immense miracle of nature, whetstone of geniuses, labyrinth of philosophers, and impenetrable abyss (which some call sideriten iron-stone because of its power to attract iron; others the Herculean stone, perhaps from the strength of Hercules, because it subdues iron, the matter that masters all things, as Bisciola holds, taking the similarity from there) is either so called from the magnitude of its virtues, as Porta says, or from the region of Magnesia, around which, as Lucretius says, it is dug up, or finally, as Pliny holds, from a certain Magnet, a shepherd of herds on Mount Ida, the first discoverer of the same, whom it is said to have discovered by the nails of his sandals and the iron ferrules of his staves adhering to the magnetic stones. Among the properties of those things which physicians call arrhetoi idiotetes & dynameis ineffable properties and powers, which Latin philosophers call occult powers and properties, or occult mysteries of nature, as in Ioann. Fernel, book 2, chapter 2, on the hidden causes of things, it rightly claims for itself the leading place. For its inexplicable properties and occult mysteries of nature, even to the point of amazement para doxan contrary to belief, have agitated every philosopher, even the most subtle, and have always snatched them into the highest admiration. For as many investigators of nature as have been found hitherto,