And you will then see that A the northern point will turn to the south, as before; in like manner also the point D will move to the north, in the divided stone, as in the whole one. Whereas, of the parts B and C, which were before continuous, and are now divided, the one is southern B, the other northern C. B draws C, desirous to be united, and to be brought back into its pristine continuity: for these which are now two stones were formed out of one: and for this cause C of the one turning itself to B of the other, they mutually attract each other, and when freed from obstacles and relieved of their own weight, as upon the surface of water, they run together and are conjoined. But if you direct the part or point A to C in the other stone, the one repels or turns away from the other: for so were nature perverted, and the form of the stone perturbed, 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 directly at pole. The pole of a stone more persistently attracts and more rapidly seizes the corresponding part (which they term the adverse part) of another stone; for instance, North pulls South; just so it also summons iron with more vehemence, and the iron cleaves to it more firmly whether it have been previously excited by the magnet, or is untouched. For thus, not without reason hath it been ordained by nature, that the parts nearer to the pole should more firmly attract: but that at the pole itself should be the seat, the throne, as it were, of a consummate and splendid virtue, to which magnetical bodies on being brought are more vehemently attracted, and from which they are with utmost difficulty dislodged. So the poles are the parts which more particularly spurn and thrust away things strange and alien perversely set beside them.
CHAP.
