"The physicists of Gilbert's time had recourse to mechanism infrequently, and its effective explanations touched only a few disconnected phenomena. The virtuosity, inventiveness, and optimism of Descartes, however, and the counter-example of latter- day hermetists like Robert Fludd, persuaded many that mechanical models offered the only hope for a precise and comprehensible physics. Expectations rose. Physicists demanded more from models, perhaps even a complete fit with phenomena, with little or no negative analogy. Gilbert's countrymen , diplomat and philosopher, and Thomas Browne, physician diplomat and literateur, freed his watery humor objections of Cabeo by concocting it into an unctuous, elastic vapor. Such a vapor could allow Cabeo's rebounds, occasion the reattractions of ricocheting that Digby noticed, and — in its elastic contractions — draw the electric as well as the chaff. This last inference was first made about 1660, by the unconventional Cartesian fellow traveller , S.J., 'a veritable giant in science' and a liberal and candid physicist whenever his Society's obligation to combat Copernicans did interfer."