tself toward the south. But the end C of the piece of iron, placed beyond
its orbe of virtue, will turn toward the north. The part E F of the
terrella, whilst in the mass, produced the same direction as the whole; but
when it is separated and suspended by a thread, E turns to B, and F to A.
[Illustration] {122} So parts having the same verticity with the whole,
when separated, are impelled in the contrary direction; for contrary parts
solicit contrary parts. Nor yet is this a true contrariety, but the highest
concordancy, and the true and genuine conformation of bodies magnetical in
the system of nature, if they shall have been divided and separated: for
the parts thus divided should be raised some distance from the whole, as
will be made clear afterwards. Magnetick substances seek a unity as regards
form; they do not so much respect their own mass. Wherefore the part F E is
not attracted into its former bed; but when once it is unsettled and at a
distance, it is * solicited by the opposite pole. But if the small piece F
E is placed back again in its bed or brought close to, without any
substances intervening, it acquires its former combination, and, as a part
of the whole once more united, accords with the whole and sticks readily in
its former position; and E remains toward A, and F toward B, and they
settle steadily in their mother's lap. The reasoning is the same when the
stone is divided into equal parts through the poles. [Illustration] A
spherical stone is divided into two equal parts along the axis A B; *
whether therefore the surface A B is in the one part facing upward (as in
the former diagram) or lying on its face in both parts (as in * the
latter), the end A tends toward B. But it must also be understood that the
point A is not carried with a definite aim always toward the point B,
because in consequence of the division the verticity proceeds to other
points, as to F G, as appears in the fourteenth chapter of this book. And L
M are now the axes in each, and A B is no longer the axis; for magnetick
bodies, as soon as they are divided, become single magnetick wholes; and
they have {123} vertices in accordance with their mass, new poles arising
at each end in consequence of the division. Yet the axis and the poles
always follow the leading of a meridian; because that force passes along
the meridians of the stone from the aequator to the poles, by an
everlasting rule, the inborn virtue of the substance agreeing the