Chapter XXIV.—Rivers and Seas.

“What shall we say of fountains and rivers, which flow with perpetual motion into the sea?  And, by the divine providence, neither does their abundant supply fail, nor does the sea, though it receives so great quantities of water, experience any increase, but both those elements which contribute to it and those which are thus contributed p. 172 remain in the same proportion.  But you will say to me:  The salt water naturally consumes the fresh water which is poured into it.  Well, in this is manifest the work of providence, that it made that element salt into which it turned the courses of all the waters which it had provided for the use of men.  So that through so great spaces of time the channel of the sea has not been filled, and produced a deluge destructive to the earth and to men.  Nor will any one be so foolish as to think that this so great reason and so great providence has been arranged by irrational nature.