Date: 1600

"But yet you draw not iron; for my heart / Is true as steel."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1600

Magnetism is "of the nature of soul, surpassing the soul of man"

— Gilbert, William (1544-1603)

Date: 1607

"If the happie Daemon of Vlisses direct not the wandering planet of my witte within the decent orbe of wisedome, my stammering pen seeming far ouergon with superfluitie of phrase, yet wanting matter I answer with the poet one only word inuerted."

— Walkington, Thomas (b. c. 1575, d. 1621)

Date: 1641

Gravity is coexistence with a heavy body in the same way that the mind is coextensive with the body

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: 1651

"Attraction is a ministering faculty, which, as a loadstone doth iron, draws meat into the stomach, or as a lamp doth oil; and this attractive power is very necessary in plants, which suck up moisture by the root, as, another mouth, into the sap, as a like stomach."

— Burton, Robert (1577-1640)

Date: 1656

"Thales argued, that the Load-stone, and Amber had soules; the first because it drawes Iron, the second Straw."

— Stanley, Thomas (1625-1678)

Date: 1658

"Our hearts all vice, as Amphitane gold draws, / The Load-stone iron, as the Amber strawes."

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1658

"As by instinct the Loadstone draws / The iron, as the Amber straws; / So let thy grace mine heart attract, / Dear Lord!"

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1667

"A Soul self-mov'd which can dilate, contract, / Pierces and judges things unseen: / But this gross heap of Matter cannot act, / Unless impulsed from within."

— Philips [née Fowler], Katherine (1632-1664)

Date: 1679

"It is attracting Love, its nature's such, / 'Tis like the Loadstone; hadst thou once a touch, / 'Twould make thy Iron-heart with speed to move, / Nay, cleave to him in bonds of purest Love."

— Keach, Benjamin (1640-1704)