NOVUM ORGANUM. 149 



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other, and the question therefore is reduced to this. Now 

 Acosta, and some others, after a diligent inquiry, have ob 

 served that the flood tide takes place on the coast of Florida, 

 and the opposite coasts of Spain and Africa, at the same 

 time, as does also the ebb ; and that there is not, on the 

 contrary, a flood tide at Florida when there is an ebb on 

 the coasts of Spain and Africa. Yet if one consider the 

 subject attentively, this does not prove the necessity of a 

 rising motion, nor refute the notion of a progressive mo 

 tion. For the motion may be progressive, and yet inundate 

 the opposite shores of a channel at the same time ; as if the 

 waters be forced and driven together from some other quarter 

 for instance, which takes place in rivers, for they flow and 

 ebb towards each bank at the same time, yet their motion 

 is clearly progressive, being that of the waters from the sea 

 entering their mouths. So it may happen, that the waters 

 coming in a vast body from the Eastern Indian Ocean are 

 driven together, and forced into the channel of the Atlantic, 

 and therefore inundate both coasts at once. We must in 

 quire, therefore, if there be any other channel, by which 

 the waters can, at the same time, sink and ebb : and the 

 southern ocean at once suggests itself, which is not less than 

 the Atlantic, but rather broader, and more extensive than 

 is requisite for this effect. 



We at length arrive, then, at an instance of the cross, 

 which is this. If it be positively discovered, that when the 

 flood sets in towards the opposite coasts of Florida and 

 Spain in the Atlantic, there is at the same time a flood tide 

 on the coasts of Peru, and the back part of China in the 

 southern ocean, then assuredly, from this decisive instance, 

 we must reject the assertion, that the flood and ebb of the 

 sea, about which we inquire, takes place by progressive 

 motion ; for no other sea or place is left where there can be 

 an ebb. But this may most easily be learnt, by inquiring 

 of the inhabitants of Panama and Lima (where the two 

 oceans are separated by a narrow isthmus),, whether the 

 flood and ebb takes place on the opposite sides of the 

 isthmus at the same time, or the reverse. This decision or 

 rejection appears certain, if it be granted that the earth is 

 fixed : but if the earth revolves, it may perhaps happen, 

 that from the unequal revolution (as regards velocity) of 

 the earth, and the waters of the sea, there may be a violent 

 forcing of the waters into a mass, forming the flood, and a 

 subsequent relaxation of them (when they can no longer 

 bear the accumulation), forming the ebb. A separate in- 



