conservari proprie,
et in reliquis sitibus celi virtutem eius obsecari, seu
ebetari, potiusquam conservari puto. Per hoc autem
instrumentum excusaberis ab omni horologio; nam per ipsum
scire poteris Ascensus in quacumque hora volueris, et omnes
alias celi dispositiones, quas querunt Astrologi.

As the heavens move eternally, so the spherical loadstone must be a
"perpetuum mobile".

Another of the scholars whose explanation of the loadstone Gilbert
noted with approval was Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa.[35] The latter's
references to it were not as direct as those of St. Thomas, but he did
use it as an image several times to provide a microcosmic example of
the relation of God to his creation. From this one can infer that he
explained the preternatural motion of the magnet and the iron by
impressed qualities, the heavens being the agent for the loadstone,
and the loadstone, the agent for iron.

[26] Hellmann, _op. cit._ (footnote 6), Peregrinus, pt. 1,
ch. 8. The magnet attracts the iron "secundum naturalem
appetitum lapidis ... sine resistentia." There is no natural
resistence to this motion since it is no longer contrary to
the nature of the iron. The nature of the iron has changed.

[27] _Ibid._, pt. 1, ch. 9.

[28] _Ibid._, pt. 1, ch. 9.

[29] _Ibid._, pt. 1, ch. 8.

[30] _Ibid._, pt. 1, ch. 9.

[31] _Ibid._, pt. 1, ch. 9. See also footnote 27.

[32] _Ibid._, pt. 1, ch. 10. See also ch. 4.

[33] _Ibid._, pt. 1, ch. 10. See also ch. 4.

[34] _Ibid._, pt. 1, ch. 10.

[35] However, he may not always have approved of him. See
M:74; "Overinquisitive theologians, too, seek to light up
God's mysteries and things beyond man's understanding by
means of the loadstone and amber."

In the _Idiota de sapientia_ the Cardinal used the image of the magnet
and the iron to provide a concrete instance of his "coincidentia
oppositorum," to illustrate how eternal wisdom, in the Neoplatonic
sense, could, at the same time, be principle or cause of being, its
complement and also its goal.[36]

Si igitur in omni desiderio vitae intellectualis attenderes,
a quo est intellectus, per quod movetur et ad quod, in te
comperires dulcedinem sapientiae aeternae illam esse, quae
tibi facit desiderium tuum ita dulce et delectabile, ut in
inerrabili affectu feraris ad eius comprehensionem tanquam ad
immortalitatem vitae tue, qua