"A Frenchman who arrives in London, finds a great alteration in philosophy, as in other things. He left the world full, he finds it empty. At Paris you see the universe composed of vortices of subtile matter, at London we see nothing of the kind. With you it is the pressure of the moon which causes the tides of the sea, in England it is the sea which gravitates towards the moon; so that when you think the moon ought to give us high water, these gentlemen believe that you ought to have low water; which unfortunately we cannot test by experience; for in order to do that, we should have examined the moon and the tides at the moment of the creation. You will observe also that the sun, which in France has nothing to do with the business, here comes in for a quarter of it. Among you Cartesians, all is done by an impulsion which one does not well understand; with the Newtonians, it is done by an attraction of which we know the cause no better. At Paris you fancy the earth shaped like a melon, at London it is flattened on the two sides."