The Origins of William Gilbert’s Scientific Method

Abstract

William Gilbert’s De Magnete appeared in 1600, six years before Galileo’s first publication, five years before Bacon’s Advancement of Learning; it is the first printed book, written by an academically trained scholar and dealing with a topic of natural science, which is based almost entirely on actual observation and experiment. In the learned literature of the period, among the writing of both contemporary university-scholars and the humanistic literacy, it is an isolated case. An analysis of the origins of its scientific method, therefore, is not only interesting in itself but is likely to throw some light on the origins of modern natural science in general. The results of Gilbert’s investigation of magnetism and electricity being generally known, we shall consider first a few characteristics of his method and shall then try to trace its sources. Unfortunately very little is known of Gilbert’s life and nothing at all of his way of working. The investigation, therefore, must be based entirely on his two printed books.