c coition.[187]

[179] M: pp. 107, 110, 111.

[180] M: p. 108.

[181] M: pp. 111, 112, 113.

[182] M: pp. 109, 111, 112, 148, 149.

[183] M: pp. 112, 149.

[184] M: pp. 142, 189.

[185] M: p. 190.

[186] M: pp. 85, 105, 113, 143, 226.

[187] M: p. 84.

In a manner suggestive of Peregrinus, Gilbert wrote that, "magnetic
bodies seek formal unity."[188] Thus a dissected loadstone not only
tends to come back together, as in the unordered coacervation of
electric attraction, but to restore the organization it had before
dissection.[189] Accordingly, opposite poles appear on the interfaces
of the sections, not "from an opposition" but from "a concordance and
a conformance."[190] This ensures that when the parts are joined
together again, they have the same orientation as before. Gilbert
compared this power of restoring the original loadstone with that of a
plant's vital power under the process of cutting and grafting; the
plant can be revived only when the parts are in a certain order.[191]

[188] M: p. 186.

[189] M: pp. 185-188. See also footnote 31.

[190] M: pp. 186, 193.

[191] M: pp. 199-200.

A hypothesis similar to that used to explain electric attraction lay
beneath the explanation of magnetic coition: that bodies brought into
contact will move together. In electric attraction, the contact is
material and due to the "spiritus" from the electric body; in magnetic
coition, it is formal and depends on the action of a primary form that
spreads from a magnetized body to its limit of effusion, the "orbis
virtutis." If iron is inside the "orbis virtutis," the two bodies
"enter into alliance and are one and the same"[192] for within it
"they have absolute continuity, and are joined by reason of their
accordance, albeit the bodies themselves be separated."[193]

Gilbert's treatment of coition can be analyzed into the same two steps
as can electric attraction. First occurs a contact, which in this case
is not physical but formal, and from this initial formal contact
follows movement to a more complete unity. Both the contact and the
movement to unity are described on the same level of abstraction,
instead of on two different levels as in electric attraction. Again
one does not find any clear-cut concept of force as a push or
pull,[194] but instead, a motion to a formal unity, this time a
cooperative motion. The parts of a magnetic body are in greater
ha