Inaugural Physico-Medical Dissertation on the Magnetism of the Macrocosm and Microcosm

between this and that, the same distinction intervenes. Furthermore, the definitive notion of Magnetism in particular is of greater moment and carries more weight than Magnetism in general, according to the common axiom of the Logicians: there is more in the species than in the genus. Nor should it be overlooked that the former, so called in particular, is like a Cynosure guiding star toward which philosophers look with both eyes, as it were, when explaining common magnetism, since it exerts itself most of all in nature. For that reason, also, by a certain law of prerogative, it has imposed its name upon the remaining actions of the same genus in nature. However, notwithstanding this distinction between the two types of Magnetism, we shall embrace the definition of both in the same paragraph so that, as we are to investigate the etiology cause/reasoning, we may contract our labor into a compendium.

§. 12. Therefore, Magnetism (in particular, and named kat' antonomasian by antonomasia/specifically) is the mutual pull or action of the magnet stone and iron (as well as both poles) toward one another, depending upon a circulation occurring between each subject, from the more copious Magnetic Spirit flowing from the magnet and the consymbolic Spirit of the iron. We have conceived of Magnetism in general in the following way: Magnetism in general is the action of a natural body that is not distant, or that is distant in another body, yet situated in a certain and proportionate sphere of distance, performed through the reciprocation and circulation of unctuous? or subtle particles exhaling from both sides, which nevertheless agree among themselves either by an ether that is specifically similar and conformable, or disagree by one that is dissimilar, or even by various confermentation of the same, and instituted for various uses of preserving, perfecting, vegetating, and variously affecting, altering, and changing nature.

§. 13. Since each description is causal, it demands that we inquire more diligently into its genuine causes. Here you will find divisions of intellects, as it is easier to escape the various mazes of a labyrinth than to explain oneself from such entanglements. However, so that the matter may be more expeditious, we classify the causes which we find alleged in the writings of philosophers into true and spurious or false.