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

a similar ether ingrained in the snake stone, as it is unequally full, and therefore apt to receive the spirituous matter up to the measure of equilibrium. Insofar as the bubbles of the stone are filled with a certain impetus, it happens that the spirituous matter is thus voluntarily returned to the evacuated pores of the poisoned wound, and a certain circulation occurs. The stone adheres until the spirituous matter in both, after repeated undulations made hither and thither, has brought itself into equilibrium. And the Excellent Doctor, our President refers these regimes of sympathetic actions to a certain insensible fermentation, in which spirituous particles, moved most rapidly like light, exercise an impulse into the insofar-evacuated bubbles of congruent ether. That ether is called congruent which contains in itself a certain particle of the same or an analogous one, and it is that which moves and flows. If you desire more types of consymbolisms and sympathies, unroll Digby, who in his Treatise on Magnetic Cure recites a long catalog of them.

§. 18. But two questions occur here, by the deciding of which we place a crown upon the true etiology. Where must the principle of magnetic motion be sought, in the iron or in the magnet? Toward which part, and for what cause, does the motion occur? To the first we must respond by saying: in both, since the consymbolism of spirit on both sides is active as far as it is in itself. But to the latter: toward that part where the ether is moved more, thither the motion tends, but rest is situated in equilibrium.

§. 19. We have briefly explained above our mind concerning the proximate cause of both Magnetisms; or, at least, let us now touch upon the Spurious ones. Among these, we rightly and deservedly refer (1) to the Intelligences which, just as Aristotle and his followers placed over the whole world as motors, they have also placed over magnetic actions. And there is no need for us to inquire lengthily into the reasons why we should remove them from the class of true causes. (2) The Platonic Ideas, those separate and eternal forms, the exemplars of all operations in nature, also look toward this; even if they deserve a place among the true causes by some show of right, they would at least be universal causes.