[ i8o ] 
am perfwaded, the opinion owes the credit it hath met with 
among men of learning. But whatever general affertions 
may be found in fome writers, concerning celellial influ- 
ences in general, and the Moon’s in particular, as being of 
all the heavenly bodies the neareft to the earth, the wri- 
ters who treat of the figns of the weather practically, for 
the information of hufbandmen and mariners, derive 
their prognoflics from circumftances, which neither ar- 
gue any real influence of the Moon as acaufe,nor any be- 
lief of fuch an influence ; but are merely indications of 
the ftate of the air at the time of obfervation : namely, the 
fliape of the horns, the degree and colour of the light, and 
the number and quality of the luminous circles w'hich 
fometimes furround the Moon, and the circumftances at- 
tending their difappearance It is true, that each of thefe 
prognoftics is exprefsly confined, by the early writers, to 
a particular time of the Moon’s age (>>). But not, as I con- 
ceive, on account of any particular influence of the Moon 
in this or that afpecft ; but merely becaufe the prognoftics, 
that fhe aftbrds at one age, are fuch in themfelves as file 
cannot afford at another. For inftance, the bluntnefs of 
the horns in the new Moon is a fign of approaching rain, 
(aj See the Aioo->jjt*E(a of Aratus and the Scholia of Theoa. 
{b) sV 7rao-jy ett’ TiTVxIxt, 
’^Ax\ 0<7» l^iV Tpt7aTJJ TslpXTlXi^ T£ 
Mtcnpa yi y.tv «%pi{ 
^i^oy,yivov' otTxp TraXiv £« ^ip^oy.-nvrii 
itpQolSx Si ol avrlax Tijpcti 
MvvcS «7roi;^op*£>8. Apocr* Aioff'»j/AE»a. 
becaufe 
