196 NOVUM ORGANUM 



Spain and Africa. Y&quot;et if one consider the subject atten 

 tively, this does not prove the necessity of a rising motion, 

 nor refute the notion of a progressive motion. 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 

 toward 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 Atlan 

 tic, and therefore inundate both coasts at once. We must 

 inquire, 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 toward 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 learned, by inquiring of the inhab 

 itants of Panama and Lima (where the two oceans are sepa 

 rated by a narrow isthmus), whether the ilood and ebb takes 

 place on the opposite sides of the isthmus at the same time, 

 or the reverse. This decision or rejection appears certain, 



