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

True causes are either general, indeterminate, and remote, among which is reckoned God—whether you wish to speak complexly of the three persons taken together, or distinctly of the Spirit of God brooding, the third person. To this point pertains the influx of celestial stars into all sublunary things, and thus also the actions of the magnet and the magnetic actions of magnetic bodies, to which Goclenius appeals in his Treatise on the Magnetic Cure of Wounds. Likewise, the Anima mundi World-Soul according to the mind of Kircher and M. Marcus; and the Helmontian Spiritus mundi World-Spirit, which the author calls the Magnale Magnum Great Work/Great Marvel. Particular causes, acting determinately, are either more remote and insufficient for demonstrating magnetic actions, or they are proximate, immediate, and sufficient. Among causes of the former type are reckoned: (1) The various and peculiar temperament of the elements and primary qualities. (2) The mutual consensus of the magnet with iron and other magnetic bodies, and the similarity of quality, a cause alleged by Aristotle and Galen. (3) A quality emitted by the magnet and magnetic bodies that is analogous, cognate, and attractive; concerning which, see likewise Galen (Book 1 on Natural Faculties). Just as we think that none of the aforementioned causes can be denied by any right, we say that the universal ones do not come into question, and the more remote particular ones are still insufficient; for here we are searching for the proximate cause that satisfies the curious mind. But this matter is of the greatest moment, that although the effect is obvious to the eyes of all, the genuine cause is more abstruse. Hence, some philosophers—and Digby himself in his Treatise on the Nature of Natural Bodies—have counted magnetic effects among the hidden things and secrets of nature which still remain in obscurity.

§. 14. The opinion of (1) Fracastorius is not entirely absurd, as he alleges a mutual species for the proximate cause, except that he opposes this species with more subtle corpuscles: (2) The magnetic spirit of Schott in Universal Magic. (3) A ferment exempt from all laws of dimensions; see Rattray on Sympathy and Antipathy. (4) The efflux and emanation of atoms from their