29. IN the last place, when the moon is by this attraction of the sun, drawn at length into the plane of the earth’s motion, the node will have receded yet more, and the inclination be so much increased, as to become somewhat more than at first: for the line A K G H I being convex to all the planes, which touch it, the part H I will wholly fall between the plane Q V R and the plane A B C; so that the point I will fall between B and R; and drawing I T W, the point W will be farther remov’d from A than Q. But it is evident, that the plane, which passes through the earth T, and touches the line A G I in the point I, will cut the plane of the earth’s motion A B C D in the line I T W, and be inclined to the same in the angle under H I B; so that the node, which was first in A, after having passed into L, N and Q, comes at last into the point W; as the node which was at first in C has passed successively from thence through the points M, O and R to I: but the angle under H I B, which is now the inclination of the orbit to the plane of the ecliptic, is manifestly not less than the angle under E C B or E A B, but rather something greater. 30. THUS the moon in the case before us, while it passes from the plane of the earth’s motion in the quarter, till it comes again into the same plane, has the nodes of its orbit continually moved backward, and the inclination of its orbit is at first diminished, viz. till it comes to G in fig. 100, which is near to its conjunction with the sun, but afterwards is increased again almost by the same degrees, till upon the moon’s arrival again to the plane of the earth’s motion, the inclination of the orbit is restored to something more than its first magnitude, though the difference is not very great, because the points I and C are not far distant from each other[190]. 31. AFTER the same manner, if the moon had departed from the quarter in C, it should have described the curve line C X W (in fig. 98.) between the planes A F C and A D C, which would be convex to the former of those planes, and concave to the latter; so that, here also, the nodes should continually recede, and the inclination of the orbit gradually diminish more and more, till the moon arrived near its opposition to the sun in X; but from that time the inclination should again increase, till it became a little greater than at first. This will easily appear, by considering, that as the action of the sun upon the moon, by exceeding its action upon the earth, drew it out of the plane A E C towards the sun, while the moon passed from A to I; so, during its passage from C to W, the moon being all that time farther from the sun than the earth, it will be attracted less; and the earth, together with the plane A E C F, will as it were be drawn from the moon, in such sort, that the path the moon describes shall appear from the earth, as it did in the former case by the moon’s being drawn away.