Gilbert lived toward the close of the sixteenth century, and was court physician to both Elizabeth and James. In his work alluded to in the text he continually asserts the advantages of the experimental over the à priori method in physical inquiry, and succeeded when his censor failed in giving a practical example of the utility of his precepts. His “De Magnete” contains all the fundamental parts of the science, and these so perfectly treated, that we have nothing to add to them at the present day.

The Latin text adds “without end”; but Bacon is scarcely right in supposing that the descent from complex ideas and propositions to those of simple nature, involve the analyst in a series of continuous and interminable definitions. For in the gradual and analytical scale, there is a bar beyond which we cannot go, as there is a summit bounded by the limited variations of our conceptions. Logical definitions, to fulfil their conditions, or indeed to be of any avail, must be given in simpler terms than the object which is sought to be defined; now this, in the case of primordial notions and objects of sense, is impossible; therefore we are obliged to rest satisfied with the mere names of our perceptions.—Ed.