VOL. LXV.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. fofi 



fall on the syzygies or quadratures. But this seems to have been merely an 

 opinion founded on an imaginary analogy between the epochs of syzygy and 

 quadrature in the months, and the equinoctial and tropical epochs in the year. 

 For the moon, he says, is, as it were, the sun of the night. Theophrastus, 

 though a diligent observer of nature, was deep in the theory of that school, of 

 which he was himself one of the brightest ornaments : and his testimony, with 

 respect to the matter of fact, hath not, like Aratus's, a credibility founded ou 

 the mediocrity of his genius. 



In the table, p. 620, the changes which fell on the syzygies and quadratures, 

 or on any one of Pliny's critical days of the moon's age (which are the 3d, 7th, 

 11th, 13th, IQth, 23d, 27th), are distinguished from the rest by a larger 

 character.* And out of 6g changes registered in this table, 32 claim that 

 distinction. Which is rather a larger proportion of the whole number, 

 than is due to the time made up of all the days of syzygy and quadrature, 

 in the whole year, together with Pliny's critical days, thrown into one sum. 

 For since there were 365 days in the year, and the days of syzygy and quadra- 

 ture, with Pliny's critical days, amount to 113, out of 69 changes in the whole 

 year, 22 are as many as belong to these particular days, on a proportional 

 distribution. But in the preceding table, there are many alterations marked as 

 changes, when it appears that the weather returned to what it had been before 

 the time of change, within the space of 24 hours after it. Now if we reject 

 all these on both sides of the question (which I think is the fair way of reckon- 

 ing, for sudden alterations, of so short a duration, are rather to be called 

 irregularities than changes of weather), we shall find but 46 changes in all, from 

 one settled state to another, of which only 20 fell on the days of syzygies, 

 quadrature, or Pliny's days, which is still more than the just proportion., ,;,j, y^^J^ 



But again. Pliny's 8 critical days were probably intended for the 4 days of 

 syzygy and quadrature, and the 4 of octagonal aspect .-|- For if the time of the 

 conjunction be rightly assumed, the mean quadratures, and the mean opposition, 

 and the mean octagonal aspect, will always fall either on one of Pliny's days, or 

 on the day next to it. The deviation, I suspect, was intentional, and for the 

 sake of the odd numbers. Thus the 4th, 8th, and 12th days of the moon 

 should have been critical, instead of the 3d, 7th, and 11th, if the mean 

 motions of the moon had been the single thing attended to. But Pliny, or 

 whoever was the first author of the rale he gives us, chose the latter as con- 

 taining, besides much of the lunar influence, all the magic virtue of imparity, 



* Sunt et ipsius Lunae octo articuli quoties in angulos solis incidit, plerisque inter eos tantum 

 observantibus praesagia ejus, hoc est tertia, septima, undecima, decima quinta, decima nona, vigegima 

 tertli, vigesima seplima, et interluniuni. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. 18, c. 35.— Orig. 



+ The words, Quoties iu angulos solis incidit, imply this.— Orig. 



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