[8] Hellman, _ibid._, William Borough, _A discourse of the variation of the compasse, or magneticall needle. Wherein is mathematically shewed, the manner of the observation, effects, and application thereof, made by W. B. And is to be annexed to the newe attractive of R. N._ London, 1596. [9] Hellman, _ibid._, Simon Stevin, _De havenvinding_, Leyden, 1599. It is interesting to note that Wright translated Stevin's work into English. Instead of new experimental information, Gilbert's major contribution to natural philosophy was that revealed in the title of his book--a new philosophy of nature, or physiology, as he called it, after the early Greeks. Gilbert's attempt to organize the mass of empirical information and speculation that came from scholars and artisans, from chart and instrument makers, made him "the father of the magnetic Philosophy."[10] [10] As Edward Wright was to call him in his introduction. Gilbert's _De magnete_ was not the first attempt to determine the nature of the loadstone and to explain how it could influence other loadstones or iron. It is typical of Greek philosophy that one of the first references we have to the loadstone is not to its properties but to the problem of how to explain these properties. Aristotle[11] preserved the solution of the first of the Ionian physiologists: "Thales too ... seems to suppose that the soul is in a sense the cause of movement, since he says that a stone has a soul because it causes movement to iron." Plato turned to a similar animistic explanation in his dialogue, _Ion_.[12] Such an animistic solution pervaded many of the later explanations. [11] Aristotle, _On the soul_, translated by W. S. Hett, Loeb Classical Library, London, 1935, 405a20 (see also 411a8: "Some think that the soul pervades the whole universe, whence perhaps came Thales' view that everything is full of gods"). [12] Plato, _Ion_, translated by W. R. M. Lamb, Loeb Classical Library, London, 1925, 533 (see also 536). That a mechanical explanation is also possible was shown by Plato in his _Timaeus_.[13] He argued that since a vacuum does not exist, there must be a plenum throughout all space. Motion of this plenum can carry objects along with it, and one could in this manner explain attractions like that due to amber and the loadstone. [13] Plato, _Timaeus_, translated by R. G. Bury, Loeb Classical Library, London, 1929, 80. It is difficult to determine which explanation Plato preferred, for in both cases the speaker may be only a foil for Plato's opinion rather than an expression of these opinions.