ollowed contact,
attraction. However, this motion did not connote what we would call a
force:[121] it did not correspond directly to a push or pull, but it
followed from what one might term the apprehension of the possibility
of a more complete participation in a formal unity. The physical unity
due to the "spiritus" was the prelude to a formal organic unity, so
that _humor_ is "rerum omnium unitore." Gilbert's position can be best
seen in the following:[122]

Spiritus igitur egrediens ex corpora, quod ab humore aut
succo aqueo concreverat, corpus attrahendum attingit,
attactum attrahenti unitur; corpus peculiari effluviorum
radio continguum, unum effecit ex duobus: unita confluunt in
conjunctissimam convenientiam, quae attractio vulgo dicitur.
Quae unitas iuxta Pythagorae opinionem rerum omnium
principium est, per cuius participationem unaquaeque res una
dicitur. Quoniam enim nullo actio a materia potest nisi per
contactum, electrica haec non videntur tangere, sed ut
necesse erat demittitur aliquid ab uno ad aliud, quod proxime
tangat, et eius incitationis principium sit. Corpora omnia
uniuntur & quasi ferruminantur quodammodo humore ...
Electrica vero effi via peculiaria, quae humoris fusi
subtilissima sunt materia, corpuscula allectant. Aer (commune
effluvium telluris) & partes disjunctis unit, & tellus
mediante aere ad se revocat corpora; aliter quae in
superioribus locis essent corpora, terram non ita avide
appelerent.

Electrica effluvia ab aere multum differunt, & u aer telluris
effluvium est, ita electrica suahabent effluvia & propria;
peculiaribus effluviis suus cuique; est singularis ad
unitatem ductus, motus ad principium, fontem, & corpus
effluvia emittens.

A similar hypothesis will reappear in his explanation of magnetic
attraction.

[119] M: pp. 91, 92: "This unity is, according to Pythagoras,
the principle, through participation, in which a thing is
said to be one" (see footnotes 30 and 122).

[120] "Sense" is probably too strong a term, and yet the
change following contact is difficult to describe in
Gilbert's phraseology without some such subjective term. See
Gilbert's argument on the soul and organs of a loadstone, M:
pp. 309-313.

[121] M: pp. 112, 113.

[122] Gilbert, _De magnete_, London, 1600, bk. 2, ch. 2, pp.
56-57.

Following the tradition of the