the earthquake that deftroyed the towns which once ftood in this place?

To this then, (till I am better informed) I must ascribe such earthquakes as produce great rivers and lakes: and where no waters. appear, I believe the earthquakes are caufed by the immediate finger of God; either operating on the abyfs, tho' not so as to make the water break out on the earth; or by directing the electrical violence or stroke; or otherwife acting on the ruined cities and fhattered places.

A reflection on fecond caufes, and the Deity's being not only at the bead of nature, but in every part of it.

33. For my part, I think it is a grievous mistake in our philofophical enquiries, to affign fo much to fecond causes as the learned do. The government of the univerfe is given to matter and motion, and under pretence of extolling original contrivance, the execution of all is left to dead fubftance. It is juft and reasonable (even Newton and Maclaurin fay) to suppose that the whole chain of caufes, or the several series of them, fhould center in him, as their fource and fountain; and the whole fyftem appear depending upon him, the only independent caufe. Now to me this fuppofi

tion does not appear either juft or reafonable. I think the noble phænomena of nature ought to be afcribed to the immediate operation of the Deity. Without looking for a fubtile elaftic medium, to produce gravity, which medium Sir Ifaac confeffes he had no proof of; nor is there in reality fuch a thing in the univerfe; I imagine the divine Newton would have done better, if, after establishing the true system of nature, by demonftrating the law of gravity, he had faid this gravity was the conftant and undeniable evidence of the immediate influence of the Deity in the material universe. A Series 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, second caufes do, because free-agents act a part; but, in the material universe to apply them, to me seems improper, as matter and motion only, that is, mechanism, come in competition with the Deity. Moft certainly he constantly interposes. The Divine Power is perpetually put forth throughout all nature. Every particle of matter, must neceffarily, by its nature, for ever go wrong, without the continued act of Deity. His everlafting interpofition only can caufe 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

fuppofed caufe of gravity, to know to impel bodies to a center, with quadruple force at half the distance.

And as in gravity, and in the cobefion of the parts of matter, the Deity is, and acts in the motion of the celeftial bodies, and in the refiftance the leaft particles make to any force that would feparate them; fo is his immediate power (I think for myself) excrted not only in earthquakes and tides, but in the circulations of the blood, lymph, and chyle, in mufcular motion, and in various other phenomena that might be named. Books I know have been written, and ingenious books they are, to fhew the caufes of these things, and trace the ways they are performed by the materials themselves; but thefe explications never fatisfied 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.

As to the force of the moon, The pericdical motions of in raising tides, and, that spring -the waters of tides are produced by the fum the fea, ow- of the actions of the two lumiing to immanaries, when the moon is in Syterial power. zygy, there is a deal of fine mathematical reasoning to prove it, which the

reader

reader may find in Dr. Halley's abstract of Sir Ifaac Newton's theory of the tides; and in Dr. Rutherforth's fyftem of natural philosophy but nevertheless, the concomitance of water and luminary, or the revolutions of ocean and moon anfwering one another fo exactly, that the flow always happens when the moon hangs over the ocean, and the fpring 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 mechanifm. 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 the eastern and fouthern ocean, round Good-Hope and CapeHorn, it fhould 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, tho' of a vast breadth, and two thousand miles in length, from the Streights of Gibraltar to the coafts

of

of Syria and Palestine; but only fome irregular and unaccountable fwellings and falls in a few places of this fea, to wit, at Tunis, Meljina, Venice, and Negropont; and thefe 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 strong 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 Cafpian Sea no Tide; no fwelling or flow, regular or irregular, excepting that fometimes, in the space of 16 years, and never fooner, it rifes many fathoms, and drowns the adjacent country, to the almost ruin, fometimes, of Aftracan in Afiatic Ruffia; as happened when I was there to embark for Perfia?-If it be said, that this is properly a lake, having no communication with the ocean; yet, I anfwer, that it is in every quality of faltness, 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 east to weft: I fay, large enough to avoid continuing neceffarily in equilibrio, as

Dr.