Part 4

Ceteras autem partes lapidis merito estimare potes, influentiam a reliquis celi partibus retinere, ut non sic solum polos lapidis a polis mundi, sed totum lapidem a toto celo, recipere influentiam et virtutem, estimes.

Physical proof for such influences was adduced by Peregrinus from the motions of the loadstone. That the poles of the loadstone receive their virtue from the poles of the heavens follows experimentally from north-south alignment of a loadstone. That not only the poles but the entire loadstone receives power from corresponding portions of the heavens follows from the fact that a spherical loadstone, when "properly balanced," would follow the motion of the heavens.

Quod tibi tali modo consulo experire: ... Et si tunc lapis moveatur secundum celi motum, gaudeas te esse assecutum secretum mirabile; si vero non, imperitie tue, potiusquam nature, defectus imputetur. In hoc autem situ, seu modo positionis, virtutes lapidis huius estimo conservari proprie, et in reliquis sitibus celi virtutem eius obsecari, seu ebetari, potiusquam conservari puto. Per hoc autem instrumentum excusaberis ab omni horologio; nam per ipsum scire poteris Ascensus in quacumque hora volueris, et omnes alias celi dispositiones, quas querunt Astrologi.

As the heavens move eternally, so the spherical loadstone must be a "perpetuum mobile".

Another of the scholars whose explanation of the loadstone Gilbert noted with approval was Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa. The latter's references to it were not as direct as those of St. Thomas, but he did use it as an image several times to provide a microcosmic example of the relation of God to his creation. From this one can infer that he explained the preternatural motion of the magnet and the iron by impressed qualities, the heavens being the agent for the loadstone, and the loadstone, the agent for iron.

Hellmann, op. cit. (footnote 6), Peregrinus, pt. 1, ch. 8. The magnet attracts the iron "secundum naturalem appetitum lapidis ... sine resistentia." There is no natural resistence to this motion since it is no longer contrary to the nature of the iron. The nature of the iron has changed.

Ibid., pt. 1, ch. 9.

Ibid., pt. 1, ch. 9.

Ibid., pt. 1, ch. 8.

Ibid., pt. 1, ch. 9.

Ibid., pt. 1, ch. 9. See also footnote 27.

Ibid., pt. 1, ch. 10. See also ch. 4.

Ibid., pt. 1, ch. 10. See also ch. 4.

Ibid., pt. 1, ch. 10.

However, he may not always have approved of him. See M:74; "Overinquisitive theologians, too, seek to light up God's mysteries and things beyond man's understanding by means of the loadstone and amber."

In the Idiota de sapientia the Cardinal used the image of the magnet and the iron to provide a concrete instance of his "coincidentia oppositorum," to illustrate how eternal wisdom, in the Neoplatonic sense, could, at the same time, be principle or cause of being, its complement and also its goal.

Si igitur in omni desiderio vitae intellectualis attenderes, a quo est intellectus, per quod movetur et ad quod, in te comperires dulcedinem sapientiae aeternae illam esse, quae tibi facit desiderium tuum ita dulce et delectabile, ut in inerrabili affectu feraris ad eius comprehensionem tanquam ad immortalitatem vitae tue, quasi ad ferrum et magnetem attendas. Habet enim ferrum in magnete quoddam sui effluxus principium; et dum magnes per sui praesentiam excitat ferrum grave et ponderosum, ferrum mirabili desiderio fertur etiam supra motum naturae, quo secundum gravitatem deorsum tendere debet, et sursum movetur se in suo principio uniendo. Nisi enim in ferro esset quaedam praegustatio naturalis ipsius magnetis, non moveretur plus ad magnetem quam ad alium lapidem; et nisi in lapide esset major inclinatio ad ferrum quam cuprum, non esset illa attractio. Habet igitur spiritus noster intellectualis ab aeterna sapientia principium sic intellectualiter essendi, quod esse est conformius sapientae quam aliud non intellectuale. Hinc irraditio seu immissio in sanctam animam est motus desideriosus in excitatione.

By virtue of the principle that flows from the magnet to the iron--which principle is potentially in the iron, for the iron already has a foretaste for it--the excited iron could transcend its gravid nature and be preternaturally moved to unite with its principle. Reciprocally, the loadstone has a greater attraction to the iron than to other things. Just as the power of attraction comes from the loadstone, so the Deity is the source of our life. Just as the principle implanted in the magnet moves the iron against its heavy nature, so the Deity raises us above our brutish nature so that we may fulfill our life. As the iron moves to the loadstone, so we move to the Deity as to the goal and end of our life.

In De pace fidei, Cusa again used the iron and magnet as an example of motion contrary to and transcending nature. He explained this supernatural motion as being due to the similarity between the nature of the iron and the magnet, and this in turn is analogous to the similarity between human spiritual nature and divine spiritual nature. As the iron can move upward to the loadstone because both have similar natures, so man can transcend his own nature and move towards God when his potential similitude to God is realized. Another image used by Cusa was the comparison of Christ to the magnetic needle that takes its power from the heavens and shows man his way.

Nicholas of Cusa (Nicolaus Cusaneus), Nicolaus von Cues, Texte seiner philosophischen Schriften, ed. A. Petzelt, Stuttgart, 1949, bk. 1, Idiota de sapientia, p. 306 (quoted in Gilbert, M:104). It is interesting that Cusa held that the loadstone has an inclination to iron, as well as the converse!

Cusa, Cusa Schriften, vol. 8, De pace fidei, translated by L. Mohler, Leipzig, 1943, ch. 12, p. 127.

Cusa, Exercitationes, ch. 7, 563 and 566, quoted in, F. A. Scharpff, Des Cardinals und Bischofs Nicolaus Von Cusa Wichtigste Schriften in Deutscher Uebersetzung, Freiburg, 1862, p. 435. See also Martin Billinger, Das Philosophische in Den Excitationen Des Nicolaus Von Cues, Heidelberg, 1938, and Cusa Schriften (see footnote 37), vol. 8, p. 209, note 105. Gilbert (M: p. 223) called the compass "the finger of God."

The Elizabethan Englishman Robert Norman also turned to the Deity to explain the wonderful effects of the loadstone.

Now therefore ... divers have whetted their wits, yea, and dulled them, as I have mine, and yet in the end have been constrained to fly to the cornerstone: I mean God: who ... hath given Virtue and power to this Stone ... to show one certain point, by his own nature and appetite ... and by the same vertue, the Needle is turned upon his own Center, I mean the Center of his Circular and invisible Vertue ... And surely I am of opinion, that if this would be found in a Sphericall form, extending round about the Stone in Great Compass, and the dead body Stone in the middle therof: Whose center is the center of his aforesaid Vertue. And this I have partly proved, and made visible to be seen in the same manner, and God sparing me life, I will herein make further Experience.

Again, one can infer that the heavens impart a guiding principle to the iron which acts under the influence of this Superior Cause.

One of the points made in St. Thomas' argument on motion due to the loadstone was that there is a limit to the "virtus" of the loadstone, but he did not specify the nature of it. Norman refined the Thomist concept of a bound by making it spherical in form, foreshadowing Gilbert's "orbis virtutis."

Gilbert's philosophy of nature does not move far from scholastic philosophy, except away from it in logical consistency. As the concern of Aristotle and of St. Thomas was to understand being and change by determining the nature of things, so Gilbert sought to write a logos of the physis, or nature, of the loadstone--a physiology. This physiology was not formally arranged into definitions obtained by induction from experience, but nevertheless there was the same search for the quiddity of the loadstone. Once one knew this nature then all the properties of the loadstone could be understood.

Hellmann, op. cit. (footnote 6), Norman, bk. 1, ch. 8.