ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to reassess Edgar Zilsel's claims about the origin of William Gilbert's experimental method and to arrive at a richer understanding of what Gilbert was trying to do in De magnete and to suggest an alternative source for his experimentalism. If Zilsel's attempts to suggest in fairly general terms that Gilbert borrowed his experimental method from artisans and craftsmen remain unsatisfactory, maybe people should look to the other strand of his argument, where he considered the very specific influences of Pierre De Maricourt and Robert Norman. Zilsel noted Gilbert's support for the Copernican theory, but only incidentally as he detailed Gilbert's knowledge of contemporary authors. In fact the whole point of De magnete was to offer a solution to a crucial problem for Copernican theory. Copernicus's lack of embarrassment, however, was not sufficient to convince natural philosophers, who continued to demand a physical explanation of the earth's putative motion.
