I with t by the immediate finger of God ; either operating on the abyfs, tho' not fo as to make the water break out on the earth; or by diingrecting the electrical violence or stroke; or On otherwife acting on the ruined cities and and thattered places. * on fecond being not , head of na ture, but in of it. 33. For my part, I think it is a grievous A reflexion miftake in our philofophical enquiries, to af-caufes, and fign fo much to fecond caufes as the learned the Deity's do. The government of the univerfe is gi- only at the ven to matter and motion, and under pretence of extolling original contrivance, the every part execution of all is left to dead fubftance. It' is just and reasonable (even Newton and Maclaurin fay) to suppose that the whole chain of caufes, or the feveral feries of them, should center in him, as their fource and fountain; and the whole system appear depending upon him, the only independent caufe. Now to me this fuppofition does not appear either juft or reasonable. I think the noble phanomena of nature ought to be afcribed to the immediate operation of the Deity. Without looking for a fubtile elafiic medium, to produce gravity; which medium Sir Ifaac confeffes he had no proof of; nor is there in reality fuch a thing in the universe; I imagine the divine Newton would have done better, if, after establishing the true system of nature, by demonftrating the law of vity, he had said this gravity was the conftant and undeniable evidence of the immediate in gra fluence fluence of the Deity in the material universe. A feries of material caufes betwixt Deity and Effect, is, in truth, concealing him from the knowledge of mortals for ever. In the moral government of the world, fecond causes do, because free-agents act a part; but, in the material univerfe to apply them, to me feems improper, as matter and motion only, that is, mechanifm, come in competition with the Deity. Moft certainly he constantly interpofes. The Divine Power is perpetually put forth throughout all nature. Every particle of matter, muft neceffarily, by its nature, for ever go wrong, without the continued act of Deity. His everlasting interpofition only can cause a body moving in a circle to change the direction of its motion in every point. Nor is it poffible for fubtile matter, the fuppofed caufe of gravity, to know to impel bodies to a center, with qua druple force at half the distance. And as in gravity, and in the cohesion of the parts of matter, the Deity is, and acts in the motion of the celestial bodies, and in the refiftance the least particles make to any force that would feparate them; fo is his im mediate power, I think for myself, exerted not only in earthquakes and tides, but in the circulations of the blood, lymph, and chyle, in muscular motion, and in various other phænomena that might be named. Books I know have been written, and ingenious books books they are, to fhew the causes of these things, and trace the ways they are performed by the materials themfelves: but thefe explications never satisfied me. I had as many questions to afk, after reading these - books, as I had before I looked into them, and could find no operator but infinite power conducted by infinite wisdom. The perio dical mo tions of the waters of the rial power. As to the force of the moon, in raifing tides, and, that spring tides are produced by the fum of the actions of the two luminaries, fea, owing when the moon is in Syzygy, there is a deal to immate of fine mathematical reafoning to prove it, which the reader may find in Dr. Halley's abftract of Sir Ifaac Newton's theory of the tides; and in Dr. Rutherforth's fyftem of natural philofophy: but nevertheless, the concomitance of water and luminary, or the revolutions of ocean and moon answering one another fo exactly, that the flow always happens when the moon hangs over the ocean, and the spring tides when it is nearer the earth, which is fuppofed to be in the new and full moon ;-this does not prove to me, that the periodical flux and reflux of the fea is derived from mechanism. As we have two ebbs and two flows in twenty-four hours, and the moon comes but once in that time to our meridian, how can the fecond ebb and flow be ascribed to it? and when, beneath the horizon, in the oppofite hemifphere, the moon croffes the meridian again, is it credible, that from ་ from the eastern and fouthern ocean, round Good-Hope and Cape-Horn, it should as foon overflow our coafts, as when it is vertical to the fhores of Guinea? If the moon (in conjunction with the fun) by preffion and attraction, was the principal caufe of flux and reflux, why is there no established tide on the Mediterranean-Sea, though of a vast breadth, and two thousand miles in length from the Streights of Gibraltar to the coafts of Syria and Palefline; but only fome irregular and unaccountable fwellings and falls in a few places of this fea, to wit, at Tunis, Melina, Venice, and Negropont; and these fwellings, as I have feen, flowing fometimes 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 times in 24 hours; in the most irregular manner; against the fixed laws of preffion and attraction, afcribed to the moon and fun, on a fuppofition of their caufing the tides? If preffion, and the ftrong attractive power of the moon, and the weaker influence of the fun, forces the immenfe ocean twice a day from its natural quietus, and rolls it in tides, why has the Caf pian Sea no Tide; no fwelling or flow, reregular or irregular, excepting that fometimes, in the pace of 16 years, and never fooner, it rifes many fathoms, and drowns the adjacent country; to the almoft ruin, fometimes, of Afracan in Afiatick Ruffia; as happened when I was there to embark for Perfia? If it be faid, that this is properly a lake, hav ing no communication with the ocean; yet, I anfwer, that it is in every quality of faltnefs, etc. as much a fea as any other fea; and large enough for the luminaries attraction and preffion; being 500 miles from north to fouth, and near 400 miles in breadth from eaft to weft: I fay, large enough to avoid continuing neceffarily in equilibrio, as Dr. Rutherforth fays must be the cafe, on account of the fmall extent of this fea. 500 by 400 miles of fea does not require that fuch a fea fhould prefs equally, or that the gravity of its water fhould be equally diminished in every part of it, and fo out of the powers, addititious and ablatitious, of the luminary; that is, the force, with which the moon encreases the waters gra→ vity, and the force, with which the moon diminishes the waters gravity. If the moon in zenith or nadir did the work, the equi librium of the the Cafpian might be de ftroyed, as well as any other equilibrium of water, by force, addititious or ablatitious, or by the fum of these forces: therefore, there might, by this theory, be tides in the Caf pian fea, tho' not great ones. There are small as well as great tides. The tides of the Atlantic ocean are inferior in every refpect to thofe of the larger Pacific ocean. A quarter of a great circle of the earth, that is, an extent of ocean from east to west 90°, is only N required, |