KANT'S COSMOGONY
PUBLISHED B7
JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS, GLASGOW
publishers to the anibcrsttg.
MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON AND NEW YORK.
Lonaon, - Simfikin, Hamilton ami Cv>
Cambridge, Macmttlan and Bowes.
Edinburgh. Douglas and Faults.
KANT'S COSMOGONY
ii
AS IN HIS ESSAY ON THE RETARDATION OF
THE ROTATION OF THE EARTH
AND HIS NATURAL HISTORY AND THEORY
OF THE HEAVENS
WITH INTRODUCTION, APPENDICES, AND A PORTRAIT'jOF
THOMAS WRIGHT OF DURHAM
EDITED AND TRANSLATED BY
W. HASTIE, D.D.
PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW
GLASGOW
JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS
JSttbUshers to the Bnibrrsitj)
1900
K-3S
' ' To suppose a reader thoroughly indifferent to Kant, is
to suppose him thoroughly unintellectual." DE QUINCEY.
"Great as the currency of his leading ideas has been,
much still remains in his works to be developed by the
struggle and collision of future systems ; and it may be
safely pronounced that no philosopher of the eighteenth
century, perhaps none since the days of Aristotle, has left
behind such monuments of thought, or has so firmly im-
posed the task of mastering them on the speculation of all
succeeding ages." JOHN CAIRNS.
THE RIGHT HON.
LORD KELVIN, G.C.V.O.
EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED IN VIEW OF HIS HIGH
APPRECIATION OF KANT'S SCIENTIFIC WORK
AND HIS OWN GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS IN
NATURAL PHILOSOPHY
'Suum cuique. '
CONTENTS
TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION
PAGE
I . RELATION OF KANT'S SCIENCE TO HIS PHILOSOPHY, x
II. THE SCIENTIFIC RETURN TO KANT, . . . xvii
III. KANT'S SCIENTIFIC ENVIRONMENT AND ANTE-
CEDENTS, xxix
IV. KANT'S DISCOVERY OF THE RETARDATION OF
THE ROTATION OF THE EARTH, . ... xxxix
I. Lord Kelvin's Statement of Kant's Discovery, Ixviii;
2. Dr. Reuschle on Kant's Mathematical Calculation,!;
3. Kant's Discussion of the Ageing of the Earth, liv.
V. KANT'S l NATURAL HISTORY AND THEORY OF
THE HEAVENS/ lv
I. Publication, lv; 2. Kant's later Summary of the
Work, lix; 3. Excerpt authorised by Kant, Iviii;
4. Spurious Editions in Kant's Life- time, Iviii ;
5. Genuine new Editions in Kant's Life-time, lix.
VI. KANT'S COSMOGONY IN ITS HISTORICAL RELATIONS, lx
I. Kant and the Ancient Cosmogonies, lx ; 2. Kant and
Descartes, Ixiii ; 3. Kant and Newton, Ixiv ; 4. Kant
and Thomas Wright of Durham, Ixv ; 5. Kant and
Lambert, Ixix; 6. Kant and Sir William Herschel, Ixxi ;
7. Kant and Laplace, Ixxiii; 8. Kant and Cosmic Evo-
lution, Ixxxv; 9. The Ultimate Problem left unsolved by
Kant, Ixxxviii.
VII. KANT'S COSMOGONY IN RELATION TO RELIGION
AND THEOLOGY, . . . . . . . xci
VIII. KANT'S SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENT GENERALLY.
CRITICISMS, SUMMARIES, AND TRANSLATIONS, xcviii
Vlll CONTENTS
TRANSLATIONS
PAGE
I. KANT'S PRELIMINARY DISCUSSION :
Examination of the Question whether the Earth has under-
gone an Alteration of its Axial Rotation, ... l
II. KANT'S UNIVERSAL NATURAL HISTORY AND THEORY
OF THE HEAVENS, . . ' . . . . . 13
Preface, .17
Survey of the Contents of the whole Work, . . . 38
FIRST PART. Sketch of a Systematic Constitution among the
Fixed Stars, . . . . . . . . 45
SECOND PART. Of the First State of Nature, the Formation
of the Heavenly Bodies, etc., . . " , . . 69
Chap. I. The Origin of the Structure of the World, etc., . 71
II. The different Density of the Planets, etc., . . 83
III. The Eccentricity of the Orbits of the Planets and
the Origin of the Comets, . . . . 95
IV. The Origin of the Moons and the Movements of
Planets round their Axes, . . . .. . 103
V. The Origin of Saturn's Ring and Calculation of
the Diurnal Rotation of this Planet, . . . 113
VI. Of the Zodiacal Light, . . . . . 132
VII. Of the Creation in the whole extent of its Infinitude, 135
Addition : A General Theory and History of the
Sun, 156
APPENDICES
A. Dieterich's Summary of Kant's Theory of the Heavens, . 168
B. The Hamburg Account of the Theory of Thomas Wright
of Durham, ......... 180
C. Professor De Morgan's Account of the Speculations of
Thomas Wright of Durham, 192
TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION.
KANT'S Cosmogony never stood so high in the
estimation of the scientific world as it does to-day.
The history of this original and profound speculation
of the young Konigsberg thinker on the constitution
and formation of the physical universe has something
strangely interesting and romantic about it, and may
even be regarded as one of ' the fairy tales ' of
modern science. His Natural History and Theory
of the Heavens, as he ultimately designated its ex-
position, will probably be regarded hereafter as the
most wonderful and enduring product of his genius.
It left the press for we can hardly say it was
published in 1755, when Kant was in his thirty-first
year; and it bears upon it everywhere the impress
of that youthful ardour and unrivalled daring of
thought which, in its own sphere, at once outstripped
Newton, while most faithful to him, and more than
anticipated Laplace in outlining the true Nebular
Theory of the origin of the universe. But Kant's
immortal work, so pregnant with the spirit of discovery
and modern scientific thought, fell, as David Hume
ix
x KANT'S UNIVERSAL NATURAL HISTORY
said of his own first Treatise, ' still-born from the
press'; and it was not till nearly a century afterwards
that its great merit and significance began to be recog-
nised by the leaders of science. That recognition
has been growing in depth and volume during the
past fifty years, and it is no exaggeration to say
that Kant's speculation now holds the foremost place,
in its essential positions, among all the scientific
cosmogonies of the time. No knowledge of physical
astronomy is now complete without reference to it.
I. RELATION OF KANT'S SCIENCE TO HIS
PHILOSOPHY.
The view thus indicated may, nay, must, appear
surprising, and even untenable at first sight, to those
who know Kant only as the founder of the Critical
Philosophy and the creator of the speculative spirit
of the great German systems of thought. But none
the less true is it, when critically and historically
viewed, in the light of the final issues of these
philosophical systems. The Critique of Pure
Reason, even with the addition of the two great
supplementary Critiques, has worked itself out to a
certain hopeless result which has almost been fatal
to the progress of philosophy itself, through the
brilliant idealistic movement from Fichte to Hegel,
till the cry in the philosophical schools for a time
has been 'back again to Kant/ as the still unex-
hausted explorer of pure reason, and the fresh
TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION xi
inspirer of new philosophic effort. But while the
Neo-Kantian school, which rules so largely the
thought and method of the hour even in the sphere
of science, has repudiated Hegel, as Kant in his last
days so emphatically repudiated Fichte, it has not
risen above the detailed investigation of Kant's
scientific phenomenalism ; nor has it been able to
secure the ground of real objective knowledge of the
universe, which was the chief object of his search,
or to transcend his critically elaborated Agnosticism.
In this comparative helplessness and inefficiency of
the Neo-Kantian philosophy, with all its admitted
loyalty to the great master so far as it goes, a new
position has been coming ever more clearly into
view, even on the philosophical standpoint. For,
under the predominating scientific influence of the
time, philosophy has been becoming more and more
scientific; and in its demand for real scientific truth,
as the material of rational elaboration, it is being
driven back from the Kant of the great ' Critique '
of 1781 to the earlier Kant of the Newtonian natural
philosophy. In other words, the philosophical watch-
word of the realistic spirit of the time must be
enlarged and defined anew, so as to embrace a
return to Kant in his primary scientific work, and to
his original scientific creation.
To the purely philosophical student of Kant
this position may appear to be inconsistent with
Kant's own development, or even to be refuted by
it. But such a view only arises from a certain
Xll KANT S UNIVERSAL NATURAL HISTORY
onesidedness in the prevailing philosophical inter-
pretations of Kant. Kant did indeed put forth the
Critique of Pure Reason as the exposition of a
revolution in thought. He was roused from his
' dogmatic slumber/ as he tells us, by the scepticism
of David Hume; and with intense consciousness
of the issue at stake he proceeds, somewhat labori-
ously and ostentatiously, to discuss the problems
of philosophy from a new point of view. This
came as a surprise to his age ; and the persistency,
elevation, and earnestness with which he carried
out his discussion, gradually won for him the
supreme position in the European philosophy of
the eighteenth century. It has been generally at
this point that philosophical students have begun
and carried on their study of his system, without
reference to what preceded and underlay it. His
earlier scientific work, like an inner planet merged in
light, was thus almost entirely lost sight of in the
blaze of his later philosophical splendour. And even
the greatest of his followers, originators of new specu-
lative schools as they were, never got truly behind
his distinctively philosophical period ; and none of
them rivalled or even approached him in genuine
scientific capacity and achievement. Fichte was
too deeply absorbed in subjective thought and its
independent creativeness, to care for Kant's careful
physical investigations. Schelling, with all his
poetic sympathy with Nature and his vital touch,
had neither the scientific method nor the exact
TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION xii
mathematical training which Kant brought to its
interpretation. And even Hegel, with all his mar-
vellous constructive power and comprehensiveness
in thought-forms of his own, and with all his
resolute pursuit of objective knowledge that should
be at once philosophical and scientific, took up
Kant chiefly, if not solely, on his formal ideal side,
and was still too much swayed by Fichte and
Schelling and the spell of the Greek metaphysics,
to give more than a new dialectical elaboration of
Kant's speculative system and of the idealised world
of history, in which he moved as a master.
The truest scientific follower of Kant in the philo-
sophic schools was Herbart, in his own chair at
Konigsberg, who likewise drank deeply of the fresh
invigorating stream of the Newtonian philosophy,
and who brought to bear upon the problems of
thought a mathematical facility and a devotion to
exact science, kindred to that of Kant himself. As
Aristotle said of Anaxagoras, Herbart, amid the
idealistic intoxication of the time, with his severe
sobriety of thought and self-limitation to the world
of reality, seems now to be * as one sober among the
drunken.' But Herbart has hardly yet been seriously
studied in England, except by the representatives
of the new psychology which he originated, and the
educationists who have found their best guidance
in his suggestive methods. Krause excelled all the
other great epigons of Kant in the precision of his
higher psychological analysis, and the incisiveness
XIV KANT S UNIVERSAL NATURAL HISTORY
of his renewed criticism of Pure Reason, whereby
he rationally escaped from the Agnosticism of
Kant, and opened the inner life of his pure
receptive soul for the whole play of the divine idea
of the world. But his comprehensive ideal realism
was also a child of the time, and shrank with ideal
sensitiveness from the firm grasp of the primitive
movement" of matter as we find it in the strong
Hercules grip displayed at the outset by Kant. 1
Along with many translations, we have very able
philosophical interpretations of Kant ; but most of
these deal with the Critical Philosophy from the
Hegelian standpoint, and can hardly be said to
reproduce the purely scientific spirit of Kant's own
thought, or to render it in its' completeness. They
shed much valuable reflected light upon Hegel as
regards the origin and meaning of his Dialectic ;
but they have little or nothing to say of Kant's
incomparably greater merit as a scientific discoverer
and a true scientist.
Kant himself had no unscientific limitations. His
thought, while ever striving to be universal, was
scientific, or at least aimed to be scientific, all
through. Even in the vortex of his later philo-
sophical speculation, he did not forget his scientific
vocation, nor did he cease to prosecute it. The
1 1 have lately published The Ideal of Humanity and Universal
Federation, by K. C. F. Krause (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh), which
may be regarded as a popular introduction to Krause's system of
thought.
XV
motto prefixed to the Critique of Pure Reason is
taken from Bacon. In undertaking it he compares
himself to Copernicus as referring the world of
thought to a new centre. The very first problem
he raises in the Critique and deals with as cardinal
to the whole question of the origin and limits of
human knowledge, is that of the nature of mathe-
matical science and its fundamental generating
intuitions, Space and Time. His criticism of the
operations of the understanding is all directed
towards re-establishing the validity of the idea of
physical causation, and the reliability of empirical
knowledge and natural science in opposition to the
scepticism of Hume. And when he comes to deal
with Pure Reason itself, in its highest struggles and
efforts to reach super-sensible knowledge of the
world, of the spiritual being of man, and of God,
he clips the wings of all airy speculation in this
sphere, by uncompromising reference to the world
of sensible reality; and he tries to demonstrate the
impossibility of speculative knowledge of these
supreme non-sensible objects, just by showing that
the methods and laws which are valid for empirical
science cannot be scientifically applied to them.
He is thus scientific all through, according to the
conception of science worked out in the Baconian
school ; and the results of his earliest and latest
speculations, notwithstanding their apparent contra-
diction, are, when rightly interpreted, in entire
harmony with each other. Kant has been called ' a
XVI KANTS UNIVERSAL NATURAL HISTORY
Prussian Hume'; I would rather call him a Prussian
Comte, with less interest no doubt than Comte in
the mere formal interrelations of the sciences, but
with a far deeper insight into moral and religious
truth, and a much more fertile elaboration of the
possibilities of individual thought. And Kant, with-
out any sense of self-contradiction, has put beyond
question this view of his consistent interest to the
last in physical science, as the chief work of man's
logical thought, by his never ceasing to lecture in
his peculiarly attractive way on the details of
Physical Geography and Anthropology, by his
pausing in the prosecution of his critical philo-
sophy to systematise the principles of Natural
Science in 1786, by his virtually indicating the
great discovery of Thermodynamics four years
after he wrote the Critique of Pure Reason, and
by dealing with the influence of the moon on the
weather so late as 1794. We must take Kant in
his entirety if we are to understand him rightly in
any relation, and not interpret him from a mere
corner of his system as a philosopher, or by dealing
with one only of his many suggestive ideas.
As I have said elsewhere: 'Kant undoubtedly owed
much to the fact that he was a thorough scientist
before he became a speculative metaphysician. His
own development was typical of the revolution of
thought which has produced modern philosophy: that
certain knowledge of the real world must be the basis
\ of all true knowledge of the ideal world, or that
TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION xvii
Physics must precede Metaphysics. He happily
began his work by appropriating all the mathematical
and physical science of his age, and he made it the
stable foundation and criterion of all his subsequent
thinking. He was a faithful disciple of Newton, to
whose principles and method he owed most of his
formative power. . . . He laid it down that "the
genuine method of Metaphysics is one and the same
in principle with that which Newton introduced into
physical science," and he never lost sight of this
criterion and point of view. In the possession so far
of certain knowledge, he thinks as a metaphysician
and physicist, . all through his criticism of the pure
Reason, from beginning to end, and from his primary
certainty to his final result.' l
II. THE SCIENTIFIC RETURN TO KANT.
It is to the leaders of physical science in the
nineteenth century, and not to the speculative
philosophers, that we owe the true appreciation of
Kant's scientific work, and the disclosure of its rare
and abiding value. The two complete editions of
Kant's works that of Hartenstein of 1838-39, and
that of Rosenkranz and Schubert of 1838-42
brought the material of Kant's scientific writings, in
connection with the revival of direct study of Kant,
to the hand of all his students. But the interest
x ln my introduction to Kant's Principles of Politics (T. & T. Clark),
where I deal more fully with the scientific character and habit of Kant's
thought through the whole three periods of his development.
xviii KANT'S UNIVERSAL NATURAL HISTORY
in Kant was still mainly philosophical even in
Germany, and it was predominantly Hegelian, as
we see in Rosenkranz, who gave but a meagre
account of Kant's scientific work in his otherwise
excellent sketch of Kant's system of Philosophy.
Even Schubert, who edited the scientific writings,
includes the Cosmogony in vol. vi., under the
general rubric of 'Physical Geography' (!), with a
still very imperfect appreciation of the value of
Kant's scientific work in detail. But the scientists
proper now took up Kant, with adequate knowledge,
from their own point of view. The distinguished
French astronomer, M. Arago, in 1842, first called
the attention of scientists to Kant, whom he calls
'the Astronomer of Konigsberg,' and declared that
his name in that connection did not deserve the
oblivion into which it had fallen, while he was quite
astonished at the inexplicable silence of Herschel
regarding him. 1 In 1845, Alexander von Humboldt,
who may have directed the attention of Arago to
Kant when studying at Paris, in the first volume
of the Kosmos recognises the place occupied by
Kant along with Wright, Lambert, and Sir William
Herschel ; refers to him as ' the great philosopher '
who had so admirably investigated the earthquake
of Lisbon ; and afterwards designated him as ' one
of the greatest spirits of the eighteenth century,' and
'the immortal philosopher of Konigsberg.' 2 Two
1 Anmiaire pour Pan 1842, 2nd edition, Paris.
2 Kosmos, I. 90; I. 217; III. 558.
TRANSLATOR S INTRODUCTION XIX
years later, in 1847, Struve, the distinguished
astronomer of St. Petersburg, expressed himself in
a highly laudatory manner concerning the 'sublime
enterprise,' exhibited in Kant's Cosmogony. 1 Scho-
penhauer, who made an independent philosophical
return to Kant, and who shared largely in the
scientific spirit, pointed out emphatically the priority
of Kant to Laplace in the exposition of the Nebular
hypothesis. 2 Helmholtz, with still greater scientific
authority, in a discourse delivered at Konigsberg in
1854, put the same view prominently before the
public ; 3 and in a later popular lecture on the
* Origin of the Planetary System,' 4 delivered at
Heidelberg and Cologne in 1871, he puts the relative
merits of Kant and Laplace in the clearest light.
But of all the German scientists, Zollner a typical
and somewhat one-sided German of the new school
in his physical speculation and criticism did most
to establish Kant's absolute originality in works
published in 1865 and 1872, and to vindicate Kant's
claims to the first place of honour in connection with
the Nebular theory. 5 Dr. Reuschle, in 1868, summed
up lucidly Kant's whole work and merit in the sphere
1 Etudes cPAstronomie stellaire sur la voie lactee et sur la distance des
etoiks fixes. St. Petersburg, 1847.
2 Parerga und Paralipowena, II. 143.
3 Ueber die Wechsekuirkung der Naturkr'dfte und die darauf
beziiglichen neuesten Ermittelungen der Physik. Konigsberg, 1854.
4 Translated in Helmholtz's Popular Lectures on Scientific S^tbjects )
by Professor E. Atkinson. Second Series. 1881.
5 In his Photometrische Untersuchungen, Leipzig, 1865, and his Ueber
die Natur der Cometen, 1872.
xx RANT'S UNIVERSAL NATURAL HISTORY
of Natural Science. 1 Ueberweg in 1865, and Hay
in 1866, dealt specially with the Cosmogony, and
Liebmann, in 1874, continued the comparison of
Kant and Laplace. Dr. Konrad Dieterich in 1876, in
his Kant and Newton, gave an admirable sketch of
Kant's scientific relation to Newton, illustrating it
by apt quotations from his scientific writings. 2 In
1875, Fritz Schultze, in his work entitled Kant
and Darwin, excerpted the leading passages of
Kant's Cosmogony and other writings in connection
with the doctrine of evolution; 3 and in 1880, Dr.
Karl du Prel, criticising the ' Kant-Laplace theory,'
also finds it completed by Darwin. 4 A popular
edition of the Natural History and Theory of the
Heavens, carefully edited by Kehrbach, was intro-
duced into the German 'Universal Library'; 5 and
another excellent edition for students of science has
been edited with notes by A. J. von Oettingen in
Ostwald's 'Classics of the Exact Sciences.' 6 Know-
ledge of the interest and importance of Kant's
Cosmogony thus became diffused through the
scientific atmosphere of Germany, and rapidly spread
wherever German science was studied. The German
historians of philosophy followed the lead of the
1 In his article in the Deutsche Vierteljahrs-Schrift, 31 Jahrg.,
2 Heft., 1868, entitled : ' Kant und die Naturwissenschaft.'
2 Kant und Newton. Tubingen, 1876.
*Kant und Datwin. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Entwicklnngs-
lehre, June, 1875.
4 Die Planet enbewohner und die Nebularhypothese. Leipzig, 1880.
5 Universal- Bibliothek, 1^54, I $55. Good Bibliography and references.
6 Ostwald's Klassiker der exacten Wissenschaften,~N*. 12, 1898.
TRANSLATOR S INTRODUCTION XXI
scientists, and gave a more prominent place to Kant's
scientific work. Ueberweg clearly saw its importance,
and outlined it with his usual literary accuracy ; and
Kuno Fischer gives a comparatively full and
attractive summary of it in his brilliant exposition
of Kant's philosophy.
Of late years the respective merits of Kant and
Laplace in connection with the Nebular theory, have
become almost a subject of international controversy
between the German and the French scientists, and
they have respectively found eager and even im-
passioned advocates on either side of the Rhine.
In 1880, A. Meydenbauer attempted to show up
1 the contradictions of Laplace's theory with facts
and rational principles,' and to press the issue of
the alternative, 'Kant or Laplace,' 1 entirely in favour
of the former. On the other hand, M. Wolf,
Astronomer of the Paris Observatory and Member
of the Institute, published in 1886 his valuable work
on the Cosmogonic Hypotheses, in which he attempts
to dispose of the accumulating objections to Laplace's
theory, defends it while sharply criticising Kant's
views, and, although rejecting them, he completes
his work with a French translation of Kant. 2 M.
1 Kant oder Laplace. Kosmologische S indie, von A. Meydenbauer.
Marburg, 1880. Meydenbauer is unfavourably criticised by A. J. v.
Oettingen, Lc. p. 151.
2 Les Hypotheses Costnogoniques : Examen des Theories Scientifiques
Modernes sur POrigine des Mondes, sttivi de la Tradttction de la
Thtorie du del de Kant, par C. Wolf, Membre de 1'Institut,
Astronome de 1'Observatoire. Paris, 1886.
XX11 KANTS UNIVERSAL NATURAL HISTORY
Faye, in his learned and original work on the
Origin of the World, gives an excellent historical
account of the Cosmogonic theories of the Ancients
and the Moderns, and dedicated the work, in its
third edition of 1896, to the memory of Arago, who
had introduced him to his astronomical career in
1842. With exemplary impartiality, M. Faye en-
deavours to give both Kant and Laplace their due,
but his criticism leads him from both to the
endeavour to elaborate a new modified theory of
his own. 1
Kant's relations and merits as a scientist have a
peculiar interest for English students of the subject,
but knowledge of them was slow to come in England.