From the theory thus presented on why and how heavy bodies fall, not only a new but perhaps an appropriate explanation of the attraction of iron by a magnet can be deduced. For a short while we shall go off the track on which we started, and attempt to see whether some likely explanation can be given of this amazing problem.

People commonly think and say that a magnet attracts iron to itself through some virtue. But those who discuss problems of physics and do not assent to non understood or meaningless words, say that by way of some effusion or material breath continuously dispensed by a magnetic body, iron not only is attracted but it is also pulled by some force or impulse or tension. But they are at a loss to clarify and explain how this pull is achieved. Some people invoke some small chains of barbed and hooked atoms. But they cannot explain how and why the small chains retract and bring the caught iron with themselves towards the magnet. Others imagine some whirling or some curved way carried out by the mentioned magnetic diffusions to impel iron towards the magnet. All these most absurd hypotheses are rejected as they deserve to be.

We want to present something likely. Firstly, the magnetic action must be supposed not to belong to the magnet alone but to be common and reciprocal so that iron is impelled towards a magnet by its own virtue and the magnet also moves by itself to iron. The following experiment is convincing on this matter. A magnet and a piece of iron set on cork or wood float on water. We observe of course that the iron moves to the magnet and the magnet moves to the iron as well. If the piece of iron is small it is displaced to the magnet very quickly. The very slow movement of a huge magnetic body is not obvious and is hardly visible. But if one wants to make the phenomenon obvious by retaining with his hands the small piece of iron in the same position, the migration of the huge magnetic body becomes evident until it is led to the contact of the iron. You will observe the same phenomenon conversely if very small particles of a magnet are set near a huge piece of iron.