EliB AND FLOW. 197 



Now follows the inquiry, from what cause and what 

 combination of things this motion of ebb and flow arises 

 and is presented to view. For all the great movements 

 (if these be regular and perpetual) are not isolated, or (to 

 use here an expression of the astronomers^mwe, but have 

 something in nature with which they move harmoniously. 

 Therefore those motions, as well the half monthly one of 

 increase as the monthly of reparation, appear to accord 

 with the motion of the moon ; and again the half monthly, 

 or equinoctial, with the motion of the sun ; also the eleva 

 tions and depressions of the water, with the approximation 

 and revolution in the orbits of the heavenly bodies. Not 

 withstanding, it will not immediately follow from this, and 

 we would have men note the observation, that those things 

 which agree in their periods and curriculum of time, or 

 even in their mode of relation, are of a nature subjected 

 the one to the other, and stand respectively as cause and 

 effect. Thus we do not go so far as to affirm, that the mo 

 tions of the sun ought to be set down as the causes of the 

 inferior motions which are analogous to them ; or that the 

 sun and moon (as is commonly said) have dominion over 

 these motions of the sea, although such notions are easily 

 insinuated into our minds from veneration of the heavenly 

 bodies; but in that very half monthly motion, if it be 

 rightly noted, it were a new and surprising kind of subjec 

 tion to influence, that the tides at new and at full moon 

 should be affected in the same manner, when the moon 

 is affected in contrary ways ; and many other things might 

 be instanced, destroying similar fancies of this sort of 

 dominant influence, and leading to this inference that those 

 correspondencies arise from the catholic affections of mat 

 ter, from the primary concatenation of causes, and con 

 nexion of things ; not as if such were governed the one 

 by the other, but both flowed from the same sources and 

 from joint causes. Notwithstanding this, however, it 

 remains true, as we have said, that nature delights in 

 harmony, and scarcely admits of any thing isolated or soli 

 tary. We must therefore look, in treating of the sexhorary 

 ebb and flow of the sea, with what other motions it is 

 found to agree and harmonize. And first we must in 

 quire with respect to the moon, in what manner that mo 

 tion blends relations or natures with the moon. But this 

 we do not see prevail except in the monthly repairing of 

 the moon, for the periodical course of six hours has no 

 affinity with the monthly course; nor again are the 



