Copy 1

The principia; or, the first principles of natural things, being new attempts toward a philosophical explanation of the elementary world / By Emanuel Swedenborg ... Translated from the Latin by the Rev. Augustus Clissold.

  • Emmanuel Swedenborg
Date:
1845-1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The principia; or, the first principles of natural things, being new attempts toward a philosophical explanation of the elementary world / By Emanuel Swedenborg ... Translated from the Latin by the Rev. Augustus Clissold. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/556 page 3
    magnet. Yet the magnet is the cause of the attraction; for the keys become loosened one from the other immediately they are raised higher above the magnet. Why then does the key C, which is so remote from the magnet, attract the key B more strongly than the magnet A does ? Some perhaps may think that the key B is not attracted by the magnet, but is repelled against C; but this is untrue; for B is most strongly attracted by the magnet, as will be evident from the following circum¬ stance. If the pole of the magnet be at E, and if the key B be car¬ ried round it in a circular direction, but at a considerable distance, namely, in the periphery of a large circle, the inferior part K will be drawn toward E, and the whole key will acquire a very oblique position, and appear in its motion to describe a conical surface. In instituting this experiment, moreover, it is observable, that if the axis of the magnet be perpendicular to the horizon, the keys may, without losing their attraction, be elevated above the magnet higher than they may he when the axis is parallel to the horizon; and if the north pole of the magnet be turned upwards, then may the keys be raised to the highest distance from the stone of which they are capable, without destroying their mutual coherence. Fig. 47.* EXPERIMENT XLVI. Fig. 47. If a number of small iron globes C, D, E, applied one to the other and suspended from each other, be attracted in a rectilinear series perpendicular to the horizon, by the pole C of the magnet PC ; and if the cognominal pole B of another magnet BS, be slowly brought toward the inferior globe E, from which it has been removed to a considerable distance, it will separate the globe E from D, and will repel the entire series of globes DC, by giving it an oblique position. We always observe that the cognominal poles of two magnets mutually repel each other. This being granted, the pole C of the magnet CP attracts to itself the series of globes E, D, C, in a direc¬ tion from E to C; and thus all the lowermost parts of the ^ globes will be the cognominal poles of C, and the uppermost parts will be the cognominal poles of P. E' * In the original, plate IX., fig. 5. B 2
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3