y period, while philosophy lay as yet rude and uncultivated in
the mists of error and ignorance, few were the virtues and properties of
things that were known and clearly perceived: there was a bristling forest
of plants and herbs, things metallick were hidden, and the knowledge of
stones was unheeded. But no sooner had the talents and toils of many
brought to light certain commodities necessary for the use and safety of
men, and handed them on to others (while at the same time reason and
experience had added a larger hope), than a thorough examination began to
be made of forests and fields, hills and heights; of seas too, and the
depths of the waters, of the bowels of the earth's body; and all things
began to be looked into. And at length by good luck the magnet-stone was
discovered in iron lodes, probably by smelters of iron or diggers of
metals. This, on being handled by metal folk, quickly displayed that
powerful and strong attraction for iron, a virtue not latent and obscure,
but easily proved by all, and highly praised and commended. And in after
time when it had emerged, as it were out of darkness and deep dungeons, and
had become dignified of men on account of its strong and amazing attraction
for iron, many philosophers as well as physicians of ancient days
discoursed of it, in short celebrated, as it were, its memory only; as for
instance Plato in the _Io_[2], Aristotle in the _De Anima_[3], in Book I.
only, Theophrastus the Lesbian, Dioscorides, C. Plinius Secundus, and
Julius Solinus[4]. As handed down by them the loadstone merely attracted
iron, the rest of its virtues were all undiscovered. But that the story of
the {2} loadstone might not appear too bare and too brief, to this singular
and sole known quality there were added certain figments and falsehoods,
which in the earliest times, no less than nowadays, used to be put forth by
raw smatterers and copyists to be swallowed of men. As for instance, that
if a loadstone be anointed with garlick, or if a diamond be near, it does
not attract iron[5]. Tales of this sort occur in Pliny, and in Ptolemy's
_Quadripartitum_; and the errors have been sedulously propagated, and have
gained ground (like ill weeds that grow apace) coming down even to our own
day, through the writings of a host of men, who, to fill put their volumes
to a proper bulk, write and copy out pages upon pages on this, that, and
the other subject, of which they knew almost nothing for certain of t