On the Magnet

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n natural position: but repels it when in a

eave off nor forsake it until it adhæres; unless by withdrawing your hand, you cautiously avoid contact. In like manner if you set the boreal pole of the one you hold in your hand opposite the austral pole of the swimming stone, they rush together and follow each other in turn. For contrary poles allure contrary. If, however, you apply in the same way the northern to the northern, and the austral to the austral pole, the one stone puts the other to flight, and it turns aside as though a pilot were pulling at the helm and it makes sail in the opposite ward as one that ploughs the sea, and neither stands anywhere, nor halts, if the other is in pursuit. For stone disposeth stone; the one turns the other around, reduces it to range, and brings it back to harmony with itself. When, however, they come together and are conjoined according to the order of nature, they cohære firmly mutually. For instance, if you were to set the boreal pole of that stone which is in your hand before the tropic of Capr

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d, a form that strictly keeps the laws which it imposed upon bodies: hence, when all is not rightly ordered according to nature, comes the flight of one from the other's perverse position and from the discord, for nature does not allow of an unjust and inequitable peace, or compromise: but wages war and exerts force to make bodies acquiesce well and justly. Rightly arranged, therefore, these mutually attract each other; that is, both stones, the stronger as well as the weaker, run together, and with their whole forces tend to unity, a fact that is evident in all magnets, not in the Æthiopian only, as Pliny supposed. The Æthiopian magnets if they be powerful, like those brought from China, because all strong ones show the effect more quickly and more plainly, attract more strongly in the parts nearest the pole, and turn about until pole looks direct