A hypothesis similar to that used to explain electric attraction lay beneath the explanation of magnetic coition: that bodies brought into contact will move together. In electric attraction, the contact is material and due to the "spiritus" from the electric body; in magnetic coition, it is formal and depends on the action of a primary form that spreads from a magnetized body to its limit of effusion, the "orbis virtutis." If iron is inside the "orbis virtutis," the two bodies "enter into alliance and are one and the same"[192] for within it "they have absolute continuity, and are joined by reason of their accordance, albeit the bodies themselves be separated."[193] Gilbert's treatment of coition can be analyzed into the same two steps as can electric attraction. First occurs a contact, which in this case is not physical but formal, and from this initial formal contact follows movement to a more complete unity. Both the contact and the movement to unity are described on the same level of abstraction, instead of on two different levels as in electric attraction. Again one does not find any clear-cut concept of force as a push or pull,[194] but instead, a motion to a formal unity, this time a cooperative motion. The parts of a magnetic body are in greater harmony when they are assembled in a certain pattern and so they move accordingly. [192] M. p. 111. [193] M: p. 112. [194] See, however, M: pp. 112, 113. As to the nature of the primary form itself, Gilbert agreed with Thales that it is like a soul,[195] "for the power of self-movement seems to betoken a soul."[196] With Galen and St. Thomas he placed the form of the loadstone superior to that of inanimate matter.[197] In a sense, Gilbert even made it superior to organic matter, for it is incapable of error.[198] Like the soul, the primary form cannot be fragmented; when a loadstone is divided, one does not separate the poles but each part acquires its own poles and an equator. [195] M: pp. 109, 312. [196] M: p. 109. [197] M: p. 309. [198] M: pp. 311-312. Like the soul, fire does not destroy it.[199] Like the soul of astral bodies, and of the earth itself, it produces complex but regular motions; the motion of two loadstones on water offers such an example.[200] Like the soul of a newborn child, whose nature depends on the configuration of the heavens, the properties in the newly awakened iron depend upon its position in the "orbis virtutis."[201] Whence Gilbert declared: