... the earth's magnetic force and the animate form of the globes, that are without senses, but without error ... exert an unending action, quick, definite, constant, directive, motive, imperant, harmonious through the whole mass of matter; thereby are the generation and the ultimate decay of all things on the superficies propagated.[202] The bodies of the globes ... to the end that they might be in themselves, and in their nature endure, had need of souls to be conjoined to them, for else there were neither life, nor prime act, nor movement, nor unition, nor order, nor coherence, nor _conactus_, nor _sympathia_, nor any generation nor alteration of seasons, and no propagation; but all were in confusion....[203] Wherefore, not with reason, Thales ... declares the loadstone to be animate, a part of the animate mother earth and her beloved offspring.[204] Gilbert ended book 5 of his treatise on the magnet with a persuasive plea for his magnetic philosophy of the cosmos, yet his conceptual scheme was not too successful an induction in the eyes of his contemporaries. In particular the man from whom the Royal Society took the inspiration for their motto, "Nullius in verba," did not value his magnetic philosophy very highly. Whether Francis Bacon was alluding to Gilbert when he expounded his parable of the spider and the ant[205] is not explicit, but he certainly had him in mind when he wrote of the Idols of the Cave and the Idols of the Theater.[206] [199] M: p. 108. [200] M: p. 110. [201] M: p. 216. [202] M: p. 311. [203] M: pp. 310, 311. [204] M: p. 312. [205] Francis Bacon, _op. cit._ (footnote 42), vol. 1, _Novum organum_, bk. 1, ch. 95, p. 306. [206] _Ibid._, ch. 54 and ch. 64 (pp. 259 and 267). Few of the subsequent experimenters and writers on magnetism turned to Gilbert's work to explain the effects they discussed. Although both his countrymen Sir Thomas Browne[207] and Robert Boyle[208] described a number of the experiments already described by Gilbert and even used phrases similar to his in describing them, they tended to ignore Gilbert and his explanation of them. Instead, both turned to an explanation based upon magnetic effluvia or corpuscles. The only direct continuation of Gilbert's _De magnete_ was the _Philosophia magnetica_ of Nicolaus Cabeus.[209] The latter sought to bring Gilbert's explanation of magnetism more directly into the fold of medieval substantial forms. [207] Sir Thomas Browne, _Pseudodoxia epidemica_, ed. 3, London, 1658, bk. 2, ch. 2, 3, 4. [208] Robert Boyle, _Experiments and notes about the mechanical production of magnetism_, London, 1676. [209] Nicolaus Cabeaus, _Philosophia magnetica_, Ferarra, 1629.