The curiosity of the present race of philosophers, having been long
exercised upon electricity, has been lately transferred to magnetism;
the qualities of the loadstone have been investigated, if not with much
advantage, yet with great applause; and as the highest praise of art is
to imitate nature, I hope no man will think the makers of artificial
magnets celebrated or reverenced above their deserts.
I have, for some time, employed myself in the same practice, but with
deeper knowledge and more extensive views. While my contemporaries were
touching needles and raising weights, or busying themselves with
inclination and variation, I have been examining those qualities of
magnetism which may be applied to the accommodation and happiness of
common life. I have left to inferior understandings the care of
conducting the sailor through the hazards of the ocean, and reserved to
myself the more difficult and illustrious province of preserving the
connubial compact from violation, and setting mankind free for ever from
the danger of supposititious children, and the torments of fruitless
vigilance and anxious suspicion.
To defraud any man of his due praise is unworthy of a philosopher; I
shall, therefore, openly confess that I owe the first hint of this
inestimable secret to the rabbi Abraham Ben Hannase, who, in his
treatise of precious stones, has left this account of the magnet:
[Hebrew: chkalamta],&c.
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