Huius autem rei causam per hanc viam fieri existimo: agens enim intendit suum patiens non solum sibi assimilare, sed unire, ut ex agente et patiente fiat unum, per numerum. Et hoc potes experiri in isto lapide mirabili in hunc modum.... Agens ergo, ut vides experimento, intendit suum paciens sibi unire; hoc autem fit ratione similitudinis inter ea. Oportet ergo ... virtute attractionis, fiat una linea, ex agente et patiente, secundum hunc ordinem ...
The nature of the magnet, as an active cause, tends to enact, and since it acts in the best manner in which it is able, it acts so as to preserve the similarities of opposite poles.[31]
Natura autem, que tendet ad esse, agit meliori modo quo potest, eligit primum ordinem actionis, in quo melius salvatur idemptitas, quam in secundo ...
Thus unlike poles tend to come together when a dissected magnet is reassembled.
Like St. Thomas, Peregrinus argued that the magnet receives its powers from the heavens. But he further specified this by declaring that different virtues from the different parts of the heavens flow into their counterpart in the loadstone—from the poles of the heavens the virtue flows into the poles of the magnet,[32]
Praeterea cum ferrum, vel lapis, vertatur tarn ad partem meridionalem quam ad partem septemtrionalem ... existima cogimur, non solum a partem septemtrionali, verum etiam a meridionali virtutem influi in polos lapidis, magis quam a locis minere ... Omnes autem orbes meridiani in polis mundi concurrent; quare, a polis mundi, poli magnetis virtutem recipiunt. Et ex hoc apparet manifeste quod non ad stellam nauticam movetur, cum ibi non concurrant orbes meridiani, sed in polis; stella enim nautica, extra orbem meridianum cuiuslibet regionis semper invenitur, nisi bis, in completa firmanenti revolutione. Ex hiis ergo manifestum est quod a partibus celi, partes magnetis virtutem recipiunt.
and similarly for the other parts of the heavens and the other parts of the loadstone.[33]
Ceteras autem partes lapidis merito estimare potes, influentiam a reliquis celi partibus retinere, ut non sic solum polos lapidis a polis mundi, sed totum lapidem a toto celo, recipere influentiam et virtutem, estimes.
Physical proof for such influences was adduced by Peregrinus from the motions of the loadstone. That the poles of the loadstone receive their virtue from the poles of the heavens follows experimentally from north-south alignment of a loadstone. That not only the poles but the entire loadstone receives power from corresponding portions of the heavens follows from the fact that a spherical loadstone, when "properly balanced," would follow the motion of the heavens.[34]