Guilielmi Gilberti Colcestrensis, medici londinensis, De magnete
54. Magnetism and Electricity
Gilbert, physician to Elizabeth I, gathered all known opinions relating to
the magnet and put them to the test of experiment, thereby being among the
first to initiate the experimental method of science. He treated the
attractive powers of magnets, their orientation to the earth's poles,
variation and declination, use in navigation and proposed that the earth
itself was a large magnet. He scorned unproved authority and the
superstitions of his time. Book II is devoted exclusively to electrical
phenomena, the first ever published.
