The Magnetic Art

colliding their sharpest lights upon this stone, and blinking like a night-owl nyktokorax night-owl, they find it easier to raise objections to these occult miracles of nature, stuffed with so many difficulties, than they have hitherto found what they ought to answer when questioned about them. Some, indeed, terrified by the extreme difficulty of the matter, fleeing from such a glorious scrutiny of hidden things, and casting aside the matter as impervious to human ingenuity, left it untouched. Others, however, philosophers of greater spirit, whether because of that natural philomathia love of learning, and the supreme love and desire for knowing and attaining truth implanted in mortals by nature, or stimulated by the incredible utility and inestimable benefits of this stone in every custom of human life, have recalled the nearly abandoned anvil and brilliantly illustrated it with their manifold observation, and, unterrified by any difficulty, have excellently confirmed it with frequent experiences, mindful of that common proverb used among the Greeks: mochthein ananke tous thelontas eitychein those who wish to prosper must labor. Moved by their example, among the other nearly innumerable properties and virtues of the magnet, we have assumed in this present treatise to discuss the 10 principal ones that produce prodigious effects and stupendous works, which are like certain principles and foundations supporting the ingenious architecture of the whole magnetic art, by both an empirical and an apodictic method.

THEOREM I.

The attraction of iron is the first virtue of the magnet, celebrated in the monuments of almost all ancient philosophers. For we note a certain natural concord between iron and the magnet, pledged as if by a treaty entered into between them, and an occult consensus of nature by which, once stimulated, one cannot be without the other. It is truly a wonder that iron, that matter which masters all things, should run so quickly to an empty thing, obey its command, stand by it, and adhere with a tenacious embrace, just as if it were prevailing with hands, nay, even with ears, and at the same time with the sagacity of the nostrils and the sense of smell