Page:On the Magnet - Gilbert (1900 translation of 1600 work).djvu/144

So parts having the same verticity with the whole, when separated, are impelled in the contrary direction; for contrary parts solicit contrary parts. Nor yet is this a true contrariety, but the highest concordancy, and the true and genuine conformation of bodies magnetical in the system of nature, if they shall have been divided and separated: for the parts thus divided should be raised some distance from the whole, as will be made clear afterwards. Magnetick substances seek a unity as regards form; they do not so much respect their own mass. Wherefore the part F E is not attracted into its former bed; but when once it is unsettled and at a distance, it is * solicited by the opposite pole. But if the small piece F E is placed back again in its bed or brought close to, without any substances intervening, it acquires its former combination, and, as a part of the whole once more united, accords with the whole and sticks readily in its former position; and E remains toward A, and F toward B, and they settle steadily in their mother's lap. The reasoning is the same when the stone is divided into equal parts through the poles. Movement of divided terrellae. A spherical stone is divided into two equal parts along the axis A B; * whether therefore the surface A B is in the one part facing upward (as in the former diagram) or lying on its face in both parts (as in * the latter), the end A tends toward B. But it must also be understood that the point A is not carried with a definite aim always toward the point B, because in consequence of the division the verticity proceeds to other points, as to F G, as appears in the fourteenth chapter of this book. And L M are now the axes in each, and A B is no longer the axis; for magnetick bodies, as soon as they are divided, become single magnetick wholes; and they havevertices