the principle of terrene matter,
albeit they have lost the first qualities and the natural terrene form, and
are borne towards the earth's centre, and cohaere with the globe of the
earth, from which they cannot be wrenched asunder except by force. But the
loadstone and all magneticks, not the stone only, but every magnetick
homogenic substance, would seem to contain the virtue of the earth's core
and of its inmost bowels, and to hold within itself and to have conceived
that which is the secret and inward principle of its substance; and it
possesses the actions peculiar to the globe of attracting, directing,
disposing, rotating, stationing itself in the universe, according to the
rule of the whole, and it contains and regulates the dominant powers of the
globe; which are the chief tokens and proofs of a certain distinguishing
combination, and of a nature most thoroughly conjoint. For if among actual
bodies one sees something move and breathe, and experience sensations, and
be inclined and impelled by reason, will one not, knowing and seeing this,
conclude that it is a man or something rather like a man, than that it is a
stone or a stick? The loadstone far excels all other bodies known to us in
virtues and properties pertaining to the common mother: but those
properties have been far too little understood or realized by philosophers:
for to its body bodies magnetical rush in from all sides and cleave to it,
as we see them do in the case of the earth. It has poles, not mathematical
points, but natural termini of force excelling in primary efficiency by the
co-operation of the whole: and there are poles in like manner in the earth
which our forefathers sought ever in the sky: it has an aequator, a natural
dividing line between the two poles, just as the earth has: for of all
lines drawn by the mathematicians on the terrestrial globe, the aequator is
the natural boundary, and is not, as will hereafter appear, merely a
mathematical circle. It, like the earth, acquires Direction and stability
toward North and South, as the earth does; also it has a circular motion
toward the position of the earth, wherein it adjusts itself to its rule: it
follows the ascensions and declinations of the earth's poles, and conforms
exactly to the same, and by itself raises its own poles above the {42}
horizon naturally according to the law of the particular country and
region, or sinks below it. The loadstone derives temporary properties, and
acqu