Magnes sive de Arte Magnetica ("The Lodestone, or the Magnetic Art") is a 1641 work by the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher. It was dedicated to Emperor Ferdinand III and printed in Rome by Hermann Scheuss. It developed the ideas set out in his earlier Ars Magnesia and argued that the universe is governed by universal physical forces of attraction and repulsion. These were, as described in the motto in the book's first illustration, 'hidden nodes' of connection. The force that drew things together in the physical world was, he argued, the same force that drew people's souls towards God. The work is divided into three books: 1.De natura et facultatibus magnetis (Of the nature and properties of magnets), 2.Magnes applicatus (Applications of magnets), 3.Mundus sive catena magnetica (The worl
