ite magis Scaliger._--Gilbert
pokes fun at Scaliger, whose "erudite" guess (that the motion of iron to
the magnet was that of the offspring toward the parent) is to be found in
his book _De Subtilitate, ad Cardanum_, Exercitatio CII. (Lutetiae, 1557,
p. 156 _bis_).

[155] PAGE 64, LINE 7. Page 64, line 11. _Diuus Thomas._--On p. 3 Gilbert
had already spoken of St. Thomas Aquinas as a man of intellect who would
have added more about the magnet had he been more conversant with
experiments. The passage here quoted is from the middle of Liber vii. of
his commentaries on the _de Physica_ of Aristotle, _Expositio Diui Thome
Aquinatis Doctoris Angelici super octo libros Physicorum Aristotelis_, etc.
(Venice, Giunta edition, 1539, p. 96 _verso_, col. 2).

[156] PAGE 64, LINE 16. Page 64, line 24. _Cardinalis etiam
Cusanus._--Cardinal de Cusa (Nicolas Khrypffs) wrote a set of dialogues on
Statics, _Nicolai Cusani de staticis experimentis dialogus_ (1550), of
which an English version appeared in London in 1650 with the title, _The
Idiot in four books; the first and second of wisdom, the third of the
minde, the fourth of statick experiments. By the famous and learned C.
Cusanus._ In the fourth book _of statick Experiments, Or experiments of the
Ballance_, occurs (p. 186) the following:

"_Orat._ Tell me, if thou hast any device whereby the vertues of stones
may be weighed.

"_Id._ I thinke the vertue of the Load-stone might be weighed, if
putting some Iron in one scale, and a Load-stone in the other, untill
the ballance were even, then taking away the Load-stone, and some other
thing of the same weight being put into the scale, the Load-stone were
holden over the Iron, so that that scale wou'd begin to rise; by reason
of the Load-stones attraction of the Iron, then take out some of the
weight of the other scale, untill the scale wherein the iron is, doe
sinke againe to the aequilibrium, or equality still holding the
Load-stone unmovable as it was; I beleeve that by weight of what was
taken out of the contrary scale, one might come proportionably to the
weight of the vertue or power of the Load-stone. And in like manner,
the vertue of a Diamond, might be found hereby, because {46} they say
it hinders the Load-stone from drawing of Iron; and so other vertues of
other stones, consideration, being alwayes had of the greatnesse of the
bodyes, because in a greater bo