- PHYSICAL anno LITERARY. 175 
ty of the ecliptic, and éndeavoured to improve 
it, for {upporting his favourite principle of 
equality ; imagining, that, in the compafs of 
this period, the ftate and phenomena of all 
places on the earth would be.upon the whole 
equal ; an opinion that feems to fuit the pa- 
trons of a blind and abfolute neceflity: but 
whatever be thought of this continual and 
regular diminution of the angle in which the 
ecliptic and equator interfecé each other, it 
is certain that fuch an equality would not be 
the confequence of it. Places of the earth 
would ftill have their peculiarities: the peo- 
ple at the equator would have their days and 
nights conftantly equal, how great or {mall 
foever the obliquity of the ecliptic were; for 
this is a_neceffary confequence of their. de- 
 fcribing a great circle of the earth by the di- 
urnal motion, that is always bifected by the 
boundary of ‘light and darknefs, which is 
likewife a great circle in confequence of a ne- 
ceflary truth. The poles would have their 
_ fix months day and. fix months night, as now; 
‘with this further fingularity, that when the 
4 axis lay in the plane of the ecliptic, the heat 
= muft have been far more intolerable at the 
¥ a ~ poles ghey 3 is now known in any part of the 
earth, 
