Universal Natural History and Theory of Heaven Part 1

Universal Natural History and Theory of Heaven.

Immanuel Kant.

Translated by Ian C. Johnston.

To the most serene, the mightiest king and master Frederick King of Prussia Margrave of Brandenburg Lord Chamberlain and Elector of the Holy Roman Empire Sovereign and Highest Lord of Silesia, etc. etc.

My all honored King and Master, Most serene and mighty king, All honored King and Master,

The feeling of my lack of worth and the radiance from the throne cannot make me so foolish and timid, when the honour which the most gracious monarch dispenses with equal magnanimity among all his subjects gives me grounds for hope that the boldness which I undertake will be looked upon graciously. In most submissive respect I lay at the feet of your eternal kingly majesty one of the most trifling samples of that eager spirit with which your highness's schools, through the encouragement and the protection of their ill.u.s.trious sovereign, strive to emulate other nations in the sciences. How fortunate I would be if the present endeavor succeeded in making the efforts with which the humblest and most respectful subject constantly tries to make himself in some way of service to the Fatherland win the highest possible feeling of goodwill of his king. With the utmost devotion until my dying day, Your eternal majesty's most humble servant The author Konigsberg 14 March, 1755 [Back to Table of Contents]

Preface.

I have selected a subject which, in view both of its inherent difficulty and also of religion, can right from the start elicit from many readers an unfavorable judgment. To discover the systematic arrangement linking large parts of creation in its entire infinite extent and to bring out by means of mechanical principles the development of the cosmic bodies themselves and the cause of their movements from the first state of nature, such insights seem to overstep by a long way the powers of human reason. From another perspective, religion threatens with a fiery accusation about the presumption that one is allowed to be so venturesome as to attribute to nature in and of itself such consequences in which we rightly become aware of the immediate hand of the Highest Being and worries about meeting in the inquiry into such views a defense of the atheist. I really perceive all these difficulties, and yet I am not fainthearted. I feel all the power of the obstacles ranged against me, and I am not despondent. On the basis of a slight a.s.sumption I have undertaken a dangerous journey, and I already see the promontories of new lands. Those people who have the resolution to set forth on this undertaking will enter these lands and have the pleasure of designating them with their very own names.

I made no commitment to this endeavor until I considered myself secure from the point of view of religious duty. My enthusiasm has doubled as I witnessed at every step the dispersal of the clouds which behind their obscurity seemed to hide monsters and which, after they scattered, revealed the majesty of the Highest Being with the most vital radiance. Now that I know that these efforts are free of all contention, I will faithfully introduce what well-meaning or weak-minded people can find shocking in my proposal and am cheerfully ready to submit it to the strict inspection of a council of true believers, which is the mark of an honest mind. Let the spiritual counselor first, therefore, hear the basis for what I have to present.

If the planetary structure, with all its order and beauty, is only an effect of the laws of motion in matter left to itself, if the blind mechanism of natural forces knows how to develop itself out of chaos in such a masterful way and to reach such perfection on its own, then the proof of the primordial Divine Author, which we derive from a glance at the beauty of the cosmic structure, is wholly discredited. Nature is self-sufficient, the divine rule is unnecessary, Epicurus lives once again in the midst of Christendom, and an unholy philosophy steps on the faith which emits a bright light to illuminate it.

If I found this criticism valid, then the conviction which I have of the infallibility of divine truths is for me so empowering, that I would consider everything which contradicts it sufficiently refuted by that fact and would reject it. But the very agreement which I encounter between my system and religion raises my confidence in the face of all difficulties to an unshakable composure.

I recognize all the value of those proofs which people derive from the beauty and perfect organization of the cosmic structure to confirm the primordial and most eminently wise Creator. If we do not obstinately deny all conviction, then we must agree with such incontrovertible reasons. But I maintain that the people who defend religion in this way, by presenting an unnecessarily weak case, make use of such principles badly, so as to perpetuate the conflict with the natural scientists.

People are accustomed to take note of and to extol the harmony, beauty, the purposes, and a perfect interplay of means and ends in nature. But while they, on the one hand, extol nature, on the other hand, they seek to diminish it again. This fine consistency, they say, is foreign to nature. Left alone to its universal laws it would bring forth nothing but disorder. The harmonies demonstrate a foreign hand, which knew how to force material left without any regularity into a wise design. But I answer that if the universal material laws were established equally as a result of the highest design, then they could presumably have no purposes except to act on their own to fulfill the plan which the Highest Wisdom has set out for itself. But if this is not the case, should we not be drawn to experiment with the belief that at least matter and its general laws may be independent and that most eminently wise power, which knew how to make use of them so splendidly, may indeed be great, but not infinite, certainly powerful, but not totally self-sufficient?

The defender of religion fears that this same harmony which can be explained by the natural tendency of matter must demonstrate the independence of nature from divine providence. He clearly confesses that if people can discover natural reasons for all the order in the cosmic structure, something which can bring it into existence from the most universal and essential characteristics of matter, then it may be unnecessary to invoke the highest ruling power. According to the natural scientist's calculations, he finds nothing to quarrel with in this claim. He hunts after examples which establish the fertility of general natural laws for perfectly beautiful consequences, and brings true believers into danger through such proofs, which in their hands could become invincible weapons. I will cite an example. People have already often proposed as one of the clearest proofs of a kind of providence solicitous of human welfare that in the hottest parts of the earth the sea winds, right at the very time when the heated land most requires cooling, spread over the land and refresh it, as if they were summoned. For example, in the island of Jamaica, as soon as the sun has climbed sufficiently high to heat the land most strongly, just after 9 in the morning, a wind begins to come in from the sea and blows from all sides over the land. Its strength increases proportionally with the elevation of the sun. Around 1 in the afternoon, when it naturally is the hottest, the wind is at its strongest. It gradually decreases with the declination of the sun, so that in the evening the very same stillness reigns as at the start. Without this welcome arrangement, the island would be uninhabitable. All coastal lands lying in the hot places on the Earth enjoy this same benefit. Moreover, it is most essential for them, because they are the lowest places on dry land and also suffer the greatest heat. For the higher regions in the country, which this sea wind does not reach, are in less need of it, because their higher location places them in a region of cooler air. Is not all this beautiful? Are there not clear purposes which have been realized by judiciously applied means? However, by way of a counterargument the natural scientist must find the natural causes of this in the general characteristics of air, without needing to a.s.sume any special arrangements in the matter. He observes correctly that these sea winds have to go through such periodic movements, even if no human beings lived on the island, for no reason other than the property of the air (which is indispensably necessary only for the growth of plant life), without any goal directed intention of helping inhabitants, namely, because of its elasticity and weight. The sun's heat upsets the air's equilibrium by thinning out the air over the land thus allowing the cooler sea air to rise from its position and take the place of the air over the land.

What uses generally advantageous to our planet Earth do the winds not possess?

What uses does the keen intelligence of human beings not make of them? However, no other arrangements were necessary to create them except the general conditions of air and heat, which also must occur on the Earth without reference to these purposes.

At this point the freethinker says if you concede the point that when people infer useful and purposeful arrangements from the most general and simplest natural laws, then we have no need of the special rule of a Highest Wisdom, then consider proofs which will entrap you by your own admission. All nature, especially in the wild, is full of such proofs, which permit us to recognize that matter, which organizes itself through the mechanical operation of its own forces, has a certain regularity in its effects and without compulsion satisfactorily acts by appropriate rules. When, in order to come to the rescue of the worthy cause of religion, a well-meaning person wishes to contest this capacity of general natural laws, then he will embarra.s.s himself and by a poor defense give atheism a chance to triumph.

However, let us see how these reasons, which we fear in the hands of our opponents as injurious, are by contrast strong weapons to use in the fight against them. Matter, which organizes itself according to its general laws, produces through its natural processes or, if we prefer, through a blind mechanical process, good consequences, which appear to be the design of a supremely High Wisdom. When left to themselves, air, water, and heat produce wind and clouds, rain, and streams, which irrigate lands, and all the useful consequences without which Nature would have to remain sad, empty, and barren.

However, they produce these results not through mere chance or accident (which could have just as readily resulted in disaster). But we see that these consequences are limited by natural laws so as to work only in this way. What should we then think of this harmony? How would it really be possible that things with different natures should strive to work in cooperation with one another for such perfect coordination and beauty, even with purposes in such matters which are to a certain extent beyond the range of lifeless material stuff, namely, the benefit of human beings and animals, unless they recognized a common origin, namely, an Infinite Understanding, in which the essential interrelated construction of everything was planned? If their natures were necessarily isolated and independent, what an astonis.h.i.+ng contingency that would be, or rather, how impossible it would be that with their natural efforts they should mesh so exactly together, as if an overriding wise selection had united them.

Now, I confidently apply this concept to my present enterprise. I summon up all the material stuff of all worlds in a universal confusion and create out of this a perfect chaos. According to the established laws of attraction, I see matter developing, and it modifies its motion through repulsion. Without the a.s.sistance of arbitrary fictions, I enjoy the pleasure of seeing a well-ordered totality emerge under the influence of the established laws of motion, something which looks so similar to the same planetary system which we see in front of us, that I cannot prevent myself from believing that it is the same. This unantic.i.p.ated revelation of the order of nature on a grand scale I find at first suspicious, because it establishes a well-coordinated and correct system on such a meagre and simple foundation. Finally, on the basis of the previously outlined observation, I advise myself that such a natural development is not something unheard of but that nature's essential striving necessary brings such things with it and that this is the most marvelous evidence of her dependence on that Primordial Essence which has within Itself the origins of being, together with the first laws by which nature operates. This insight doubles my trust in the proposal I have made. The confidence increases with each step I take as I continue on, and my timidity disappears completely.

But the defense of your system, it will be said, is at the same time a defense of the opinions of Epicurus, to which it has the closest similarity. I will not altogether deny the truth of this remark. Many people have become atheists through the apparent truth of such reasons which, with a more scrupulous consideration, could have convinced them as forcibly as possible of the certain existence of the Highest Being. The consequences which a perverse understanding infers from innocent basic principles are often very blameworthy. Although his theory was what one would expect from the keen intelligence of great spirit, Epicurus's conclusions were of this kind.

I will also not deny that the theory of Lucretius or of his predecessors (Epicurus, Leucippus, and Democritus) has much similarity to mine. Like those philosophers, I set out the first condition of Nature as that state of the world consisting of a universal scattering of the primordial material of all planetary bodies, or atoms, as they were called by these writers. Epicurus proposes a principle of heaviness which drives these small elementary particles downwards, and this appears not very different from Newton's power of attraction, which I a.s.sume. He also a.s.signed to these particles a certain deviation from the straight linear movement of their descent, although at the same time he had an absurd picture of the cause and consequences of this deviation. This deviation comes about to some extent from the alteration in the linear descent, a change which we derive from the force of repulsion of the particles. Finally, came the eddies, which arise from the confused movement of the atoms, a major part of the theories of Leucippus and Democritus. We will meet them also in our theory. But such a close affinity with a theory which was truly the theory of atheism in ancient times does not lead mine to be grouped with their errors. With the most foolish opinions which can win popular applause, sometimes there is some truth to remark upon. A false basic a.s.sumption or a pair of unexamined coordinating principles lead people from the footpath of truth through unnoticed misdirections right to the abyss. Nonetheless, there remains, in spite of the above mentioned similarity, an essential difference between the ancient cosmogony and the present one, so that one can derive from the latter totally opposite consequences.

The previously mentioned teachers of the mechanistic development of the cosmic structure derived all order which they could perceive in it from chance accident which allowed the atoms to come together in such a fortunate way that they created a well-ordered totality. Epicurus was even so unconscionable that he demanded that the atoms swerved from their direct linear movement without any cause, so that they could run into each other. Collectively these writers pushed this absurdity so far, that they even attributed the origin of all living creatures to this blind collision and, in effect, derived reason from irrationality. In my theory, by contrast, I find matter bound by certain necessary laws. I see a beautiful and orderly totality developing quite naturally out of its total dissolution and scattering. This does not happen by accident or chance. We see that natural characteristics necessarily bring this condition with them. Hence, will we not be moved to inquire why matter must have just such laws which forcefully bring order and prosperity? Was it really possible that many things, each of which has a nature independent of the others, should on their own const.i.tute themselves in such a way that a well ordered totality arises? And if they do this, is there not an undeniable proof of the commonality of their primordial origin, which must be a self-sufficient Highest Reason, in which the natures of things were designed for common purposes?

The material which is the primordial stuff for all things is thus bound by certain laws. Freely left subject to these laws, it must necessarily bring forth beautiful combinations. It has no freedom to deviate from this planned perfection. Since it also finds itself subject to the loftiest wise purpose, it must of necessity be set in such a harmonious relations through a First Cause which rules it. There is a G.o.d for just this reason, that Nature, even in a chaotic state can develop only in an orderly and rule-governed manner.

I have such a high opinion of the honest minds of those people who confer upon this proposal the honour of testing it, that I remain confident that, where the basic principles mentioned above will still not be able to get rid of all worries about the deleterious consequences of my system, nevertheless at least they place the sincerity of my intentions beyond doubt. If, in spite of this, there are malicious zealots who consider it a duty worthy of their holy calling to attach shameful explanations to innocent opinions, then I am confident that their judgment will have precisely the opposite effect among reasonable people.

Besides, people will not deprive me of the right which Descartes enjoyed in his time among disinterested critics when he ventured to explain the development of world bodies from merely mechanical laws. I will therefore quote from the author of Universal World History (1): "Thus we can do nothing other than believe that the attempt of that philosopher who endeavored to explain the development of the world in a certain time from confused matter simply through the continuation of a movement once impressed on it using a few easy and universal laws of motion, or of others who since then have, with more approval, attempted the same thing through the primordial inherent properties of matter, is far from being worthy of punishment or degrading to G.o.d, as many have imagined, since in this way a higher idea of His infinite wisdom is far more likely to be brought about."

I have sought to clear away the difficulties which seem, from a religious point of view, to threaten my propositions. There are some equally significant difficulties with respect to the subject matter itself. If it is immediately true, people will say, that G.o.d has given the natural forces a hidden ability to develop on their own out of chaos a perfect world order, will human understanding, which is so stupid in the commonest circ.u.mstances, be able to investigate hidden properties in such a ma.s.sive enterprise? Such an undertaking amounts to much the same thing as when people say: Give me only the material, and I will create a world out of it for you. Can you learn nothing from the weakness of your insights, which are shamed by the most insignificant things which come into our mind daily and close by, that it is vain to discover the infinite and what was happening in nature even before there was a world? I demolish this difficulty, for I clearly show that of all the attempts which could be devised to learn about nature, this very endeavor may be the one in which we can most easily and surely go right to the origin. For this very reason among all problems of research into nature, none will be resolved more correctly and certainly than the true const.i.tution of the planetary structure on a large scale, the laws of motions, and the inner workings which drive all planetary orbits, in which Newtonian philosophy can provide such insights that we find nothing like them in any other part of philosophy. For just this reason, I maintain that among all the natural phenomena whose first cause we investigate, the origin of the planetary system and the production of the heavenly bodies, together with the cause of their movement, is the one which we may hope to consider reliably from first principles. The reason for this is easy to perceive. The heavenly bodies are round ma.s.ses with the simplest development which a body whose origin we are exploring can ever have. Their movements similarly are clear. They are nothing other than a free continuation of an impetus impressed upon them once, a motion which, combined with the force of attraction of the body at the mid-point, becomes circular. Above them the s.p.a.ce in which they move is empty; the in-between distances, which separate them from each other, are uncommonly large, and everything is laid out for undisturbed motion as well as for clear observation of them in as manifest a way as possible. In my view, we could say here with certain understanding and without presumption: Give me the material, and I will build a world out of it! That is, give me the material and I will show you how a world must come into being out of it. For if the material present is endowed with an inherent power of attraction, then it is not difficult to establish the cause which could have led to the arrangement of the planetary system, considered on a large scale. We know what is involved for a body to acquire a spherical shape. We grasp what is required for freely suspended spheres to take on a circular orbital movement around the middle point towards which they are attracted. The position of the orbits relative to each other, the harmony in the arrangement, the eccentricity, everything can arise from the simplest mechanical causes, and we may hope with confidence to discover them, because they can be established on the easiest and clearest principles. However, can we boast of such advantages for the smallest plant or insect? Are we in a position to say, give me the material, and I will show you how a caterpillar could have developed? Do we not remain here on the bottom rung because of our ignorance of the true inner const.i.tution of things and of the development inherent in the multiple elements in it? Thus, people must not let themselves be surprised when I venture to say that we will be able to understand the development of all the cosmic bodies, the causes of their movements, in short, the origin of the entire present arrangement of the planetary system, before we completely and clearly understand the development of a single plant or a single caterpillar on mechanical principles.

These are the reasons on which my confidence rests that the physical part of natural philosophy gives us the hope that in future it will have the same perfection to which Newton raised the mathematical part of the subject. Next to the laws according to which the arrangement of the cosmic structure stands in its present state perhaps there are no others in the entire study of nature so capable of such mathematical accuracy as these laws by which it has developed, and without doubt the hand of an experienced mathematician would find working these fields not unproductive.

Now that I have allowed myself to promote a favorable reception for the subject I am examining, I will be permitted briefly to explain the way I have dealt with it. The first part is concerned with a new system for the structure of the cosmos on a large scale. Mr. Wright from Durham, whose essay I learned about in the Hamburg Freie Urteile for the year 1751, first gave me the occasion to consider the fixed stars, not as a scattered confusion without perceptible rules, but as one system with the closest similarity to a planetary system.

Thus, just as in the latter the planets are located very near to a common plane, the fixed stars are related as closely as possible to a certain plane which must be imagined drawn through the entire heavens. And in their densest acc.u.mulation on this same plane they project that band of light called the Milky Way. I have become convinced that, because this zone illuminated by countless suns is very precisely structured in the shape of a very large circle, our sun must similarly be located very near this large interconnecting plane. While I was exploring the cause of this structure, I have found it very probable that the so-called fixed or firm stars could really be slowly moving, wandering stars of a higher order.

To endorse what will be found about this concept later in its own section, I will here only quote a pa.s.sage from a text by Bradley concerning the movement of the fixed stars: "If we wish to judge the result of a comparison between our best contemporary observations and earlier ones with tolerable accuracy, then some fixed stars really have changed their position with respect to each other and, indeed, in such a way, that we see that this is not the result of some movement in our planetary system, but that it can only be ascribed to a movement of the stars themselves. Arcturus readily provides strong proof of this point.

For when we compare the present declination of Arcturus with the same declination as determined by Tycho as well as by Flamsteed, we will find that the difference is greater than we can a.s.sume to have arisen from the inaccuracy of their observations. We have reason to suppose that other examples of a similar phenomenon must occur among the large number of visible stars, because their positions relative to each other could have altered for various reasons.

If we imagine that our own solar system changes its position relative to absolute s.p.a.ce, then after a certain time has gone by, this will give rise to a perceptible change in the angular distance of the fixed stars. And because in such a case this will have a greater effect on the positions of the nearest stars than on the positions of the distant ones, then their positions will appear to change, although the stars themselves remain immovable. If, by contrast, our own planetary system stands still and some stars really do move, these will similarly change their apparent position, and the apparent movement will be greater the closer the stars are to us or the more the direction of their motion is arranged so that we can perceive it. Now, since the positions of the stars could thus be altered by so many different causes, when we consider the astonis.h.i.+ng distances at which some of them are indubitably located, it will take the observations of several generations to determine the laws for the perceptible alterations of even a single star. It must be even more difficult to establish firm laws for all the most remarkable stars."

I cannot precisely determine the boundaries between Mr. Wright's system and my own, nor in what parts I have merely copied his design or developed it further.

However, I had very good reasons to develop one aspect of the design considerably. I took into account the species of nebulous stars, which Maupertuis considered in his treatment of the shape of the stars and which display more or less open elliptical shapes (2), and I easily convinced myself that they could only be an acc.u.mulation of many fixed stars. The fact that these shapes, when measured, were always round tells me that here there must be arranged an unimaginably numerous host of stars and, further, that they are around a common mid-point. Otherwise their free positioning in relation to each other would display a wholly irregular shape, not something measurable. I also perceived that they must be located in a unified system and especially that they must be restricted to a single plane, because they are not circular but elliptical in shape, and that because of their pale light they are located incredibly far away from us. What I have concluded from these a.n.a.logies the discussion will itself present to the unprejudiced reader's understanding.

In the second part, which contains the subject most germane to this dissertation, I endeavor to develop the arrangement of the cosmic structure from the simplest condition of nature merely by mechanical laws. If, for those who are shocked at the daring of this undertaking, I may venture to propose a certain order in the manner with which they honour my ideas by testing them, I would request that they first read through the eighth section, which, I hope, will prepare their judgment for a correct insight. Meanwhile, when I invite the well-disposed reader to examine my opinions, I am justly concerned that, since hypotheses of this sort commonly are considered no better than philosophical dreams, it is a sour pleasure for a reader to resolve to undertake a careful investigation on his own into the histories of nature and patiently to follow the author through all the turns by which he moves around the difficulties which he runs into, so that at the end the reader laughs at his own credulity, like those who look at the London Market Crier (3). Now, I dare to promise that, if the reader will, as I hope, be convinced by the preparatory chapter placed at the start to undertake such a physical adventure based on such plausible a.s.sumptions, he will not meet, as he continues on his way, as many crooked diversions and impa.s.sable obstacles as he is perhaps worried about at the beginning.

In fact, I have rejected with the greatest care all arbitrary fictions. After I place the world in the simplest chaos, I have applied to it no forces other than the powers of attraction and repulsion, so as to develop the great order of nature. These two forces are both equally certain, equally simple, and at the same time equally primal and universal. Both are taken from Newtonian philosophy. The first is now an incontestably established law of nature. The second, which Newtonian philosophy perhaps cannot establish with as much clarity as the first, I here a.s.sume only in the sense which no one disputes, that is, in connection with the smallest distributed particles of matter, as, for example, in vapours. From such simple grounds as these, I have produced the system which follows in an unaffected style and without imagining any consequences other than those which the reader's attentiveness must observe entirely on its own.

Finally, I may be permitted to provide a short explanation concerning the value of the propositions which will appear in the following theory and according to which I hope to be a.s.sessed by reasonable judges. We evaluate an author fairly by the same stamp which he impresses on his own work. Thus, I hope people will demand from the different parts of this dissertation no stronger validity for my opinions that what I myself establish for them in the scale of values. Generally the greatest geometrical precision and mathematical certainty can never be demanded from a treatise of this sort. If the system is based upon a.n.a.logies and harmonies in accordance with the rules of credibility and a correct way of thinking, then it has done enough to attain its goal. I believe I have reached this level of quality in some parts of this dissertation, as in the theory of the system of fixed stars, the hypothesis about the composition of the nebulous stars, the general design for the mechanical development of the cosmic structure, in the theory of Saturn's ring, and in some others. Elsewhere the treatment is less persuasive, as, for example, the determination of the relations.h.i.+ps of the eccentricity, the comparison of the ma.s.ses of the planets, the various deviations of comets, and some others.

Therefore, when in the seventh section I pursue the consequences of this theory as far as possible, attracted by the fecundity of the system and the pleasing nature of the greatest and most awesome subject imaginable, always on the theme of a.n.a.logy and a reasonable credibility, although with a certain boldness, and when I propose to the power of imagination the infinite nature of the entire creation, the development of new worlds and the destruction of old ones, the unlimited s.p.a.ce of chaos, I hope that people will be sufficiently indulgent to the attractive charm of the subject and the pleasure which we have in witnessing the harmony in a theory on a large scale not to judge according to the strictest geometrical precision, which, in any case, does not occur in a theory of this sort. I await just the same fairness with respect to the third part. There people will come across something more than merely arbitrary, although always something less than certain.

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Universal Natural History and Theory of Heaven First Part Outline of a Systematic Arrangement of the Fixed Stars and of the Vast Number of Such Systems of Fixed Stars

Is the great chain, that draws all to agree, And drawn supports, upheld by G.o.d, or thee?

(Pope)

Short Outline of the Necessary Fundamental Principles of Newtonian Philosophy Required for an Understanding of the following Theory (4) Six planets, including three with accompanying satellites, move in an orbit around the sun at the mid-point: Mercury, Venus, the earth with its moon, Mars, Jupiter with four satellites, and Saturn with five. These, together with the comets which move toward the sun from all sides in very long orbits, make up a system called the Solar System or also the planetary world structure. The fact that the movement of all these bodies takes the form of a circle and returns back on itself presupposes two forces which are equally necessary for any sort of theory, namely, a projectile force, by which at every point of their curved linear movement the bodies would continue on a straight line and disappear into the infinite distance unless another force, whatever it may be, constantly required them to leave this path and move on a curved track around the mid-point of the sun. This second force, as geometry itself has established with certainty, always aims at the sun and is therefore called the sinking force, the centripetal force, or also the force of gravity.

If the orbits of the celestial bodies were exact circles, then the very simplest breakdown of the compounded curved movements would reveal that a continuous impulse towards the central point would be required for the arrangement.

However, although the movements of all planets and comets are ellipses in which the sun is located at a common focal point, higher geometry with the help of Kepler's model (according to which the radius vector or the line drawn from the planet to the sun always cuts out on its elliptical path an area proportional to the time) immediately establishes with unequivocal certainty that a force must constantly draw the planet throughout its...o...b..tal path towards the mid point of the sun. This sinking force, which governs throughout the entire s.p.a.ce of the planetary system and directs itself to the sun, is also an accepted natural phenomenon. Equally clearly demonstrated is the law according to which this force extends from the mid-point of the sun into the far distances. It always decreases inversely as the square roots of the distance from the centre increases. This rule is derived infallibly from the time which the planets need at different distances to complete their orbits. These times are always in a ratio to the square root of the cubes of their average distance from the sun.

From this we deduce that the force which pulls these cosmic bodies to the mid-point of their orbits must decrease inversely as the square of the distance.

This very same law which governs the planets in their movements around the sun occurs also in connection with small systems, namely, with those which are made up of the moons moving about their main planet. Their orbital times are in exactly the same way proportional to the distance and establish a relations.h.i.+p of the force which causes sinking towards the planet, which is the same as the one by which the planet is pulled towards the sun. All this, derived from the most infallible geometry and uncontested observations, has been placed forever beyond contradiction. From this arises now the idea that this sinking force may be exactly the same impetus which is called heaviness on the surface of the planet and which diminishes with the distance from the surface gradually according to the above-mentioned law. We see this from the comparison of the quant.i.ty of heaviness on the surface of the earth with the force which pulls the moon to the mid-point of its...o...b..t. These stand in relation to each other just as the force of attraction in the entire planetary system, namely, in inverse proportion to the square of the distance. Hence people call this frequently reported force gravity.

Moreover, because the idea is highly probable that if a present effect occurs only in proportion to the distance to a certain body and if the direction of this effect is related as precisely as possible to this body, then this body may be, however this occurs, the cause of the effect. Therefore, we have sufficient reason to think that the universal downward movement of the planets towards the sun is an attribute of the power of attraction of the sun and to ascribe this power of attraction in general to all the celestial bodies.

If a body is left free to the influence of this impulse which drives it to sink toward the sun or any other planet, then it will fall towards it with a constantly accelerating motion and soon will be united with that same ma.s.s.

However, if it gets a force directing it to the side, then, if that force is not powerful enough to achieve an exact equilibrium with the sinking force, the body will sink down to the central ma.s.s with a curved movement. And if, before the sinking body touches the outer surface of the central ma.s.s, the impulse impressed on it has grown at least strong enough to s.h.i.+ft it from the vertical line about half the thickness of the central ma.s.s, then it will not touch this surface but, after it has swung closely around it, will, thanks to the velocity achieved in its fall, be raised up high again just as far as it fell, so as to continue its path in a constant orbital movement.

Thus, the difference between the orbital paths of the comets and the planets consists in the sideways deviation in opposition to the force which drives them to fall. The more these two forces approach an equilibrium, the more the orbit will become circular in shape; the more unequal they are, the weaker the projectile force in relation to the force pulling to the centre, then the longer the orbit, or, as we say, the more eccentric the orbit is, because the celestial body in one part of its path comes far closer to the sun than in another.

Because nothing in all nature is exactly balanced, no planet has an entirely circular motion. However, the comets deviate the most from a circular orbit, because at their first location the sideways impetus influencing them was the least proportional to the force pulling them to the centre.

In this treatise I will often use the expression a systematic arrangement of the cosmic structure. So that people will have no difficulty clearly imagining what this term might mean, I will explain it briefly. Strictly speaking, all the planets and comets which belong to our cosmic structure already form a system by the fact that they rotate around a common central body. However, I take this term in an even narrower sense, in which I consider the more precise relations.h.i.+ps which have united them with each other in a regular and uniform way. The orbits of the planets are, in relation to each other, as nearly as possible on a common plane, namely, on the extended equatorial plane of the sun.

The deviations from this rule occur only in connection with the outermost borders of the system, where all movements gradually cease. When therefore a certain number of cosmic bodies, ordered around a common mid-point and moving around it are at the same time restricted to a certain plane, so that they have minimal freedom to deviate on both sides of this plane, and when the deviation occurs gradually only with those which are furthest distant from the mid-point and thus have fewer interconnections than the others, then I say that these bodies are bound together in a systematic arrangement.

On the Systematic Arrangement of the Fixed Stars.

The theory of the general arrangement of the cosmic structure has not achieved any remarkable progress since the time of Huygens. At this time we know no more than we already knew then, namely, that six planets with ten companions all have their circular orbits arranged almost on a single plane, that they, together with the eternal comets, which run riot in all directions, make a single system, whose mid-point is the sun, towards which everything sinks, around which their movements run, and from which they all are illuminated, warmed, and kept alive, and finally that the fixed stars are just so many suns, the mid-points of similar systems, in which everything may be set up in just as large and orderly a way as in our system and that the infinite s.p.a.ce swarms with cosmic systems, whose number and excellence is connected to the infinite nature of their Creator.

The systematic arrangement which occurs in the union of the planets which move around the sun disappeared altogether in the crowd of fixed stars. And it seemed as if the rule-governed relations.h.i.+p encountered in miniature does not hold sway on a large scale among the structures of all the worlds. The fixed stars were subject to no law, by which their paths were confined relative to each other, and we saw all heaven and the heaven of all heavens without order and without design. Since human curiosity limited itself in this way, we did nothing further, other than to derive from this state the immensity of the One who had revealed Himself in such inconceivably huge works and to admire Him.

Wright, an Englishman from Durham, stumbled across a lucky idea, which he himself does not seem to have developed into anything insightful, for he did not make enough observations to produce something useful. He looked at the fixed stars not as a disorganized, scattered swarm without design but saw them in total as a systematic arrangement in a general stellar interrelations.h.i.+p with reference to the princ.i.p.al spatial plane which they occupy.

We wish to develop the idea which he came up with and to try to bring out fully its implications, so that it can generate fertile consequences. The complete confirmation of these will be something left for future ages.

Anyone who gazes at the starry heaven on a clear night will notice the bright band which presents a steady light through the crowd of stars, which are more numerous there than elsewhere and which perceptibly lose themselves in the huge expanse. People have called this band the Milky Way. Because of the structure of this recognizable and distinct area in the sky, it is remarkable that observers of the Heavens were not long ago prompted to derive from it certain conclusions about the locations of the fixed stars. For we see that the band is organized in a huge circle and in a continuous arrangement taking up the entire sky. These two factors are so precisely determined and, in comparison with the uncertainty of chance, with such recognizable indicators, that from them long ago attentive astronomers should naturally have been motivated to trace accurately the explanation for such a phenomenon.

The stars are not placed on the apparently hollow sphere of the heavens, but from our point of view stand at some distance from each other, some further than others, disappearing into the depths of the skies. From this phenomenon it follows that, at those distances where they are located one behind the other in relation to us, they do not occur in an equal scattering in every direction, but must be arranged on some plane which goes through our viewpoint. They are located as close as possible to this plane.

This relations.h.i.+p is such an unambiguous phenomenon that the other stars, which are not included in the white band of the Milky Way, are themselves observed to be that much closer together and more dense, the nearer they are located to the circle of the Milky Way. Thus, of the 2000 stars which the naked eye perceives in the sky, we find the largest number in a relatively narrow area in the middle of which is the Milky Way.

Now, if we imagine a flat plane drawn through the starry heavens and extending an unlimited distance and if we a.s.sume that all the fixed stars and all the solar systems have a common spatial relations.h.i.+p to this plane, so that they are closer to it than to any other areas, then the eye which is located on this common plane, as it looks out into this field of stars, into the hollow spherical surface of the firmament, will see the thickest crowd of stars in the direction of the drawn plane, in the form of an area illuminated with more lights. This band of light will sweep out in the shape of huge circle, if the onlooker's viewpoint in on the plane itself. This area will be full of stars.

Because of the undifferentiated smallness of bright points, a single one of which escapes the eye, and because of the apparent density of a uniform white gleam, it will look, in a word, like a Milky Way. The rest of the heavenly stars, whose relations.h.i.+p with the drawn plane becomes less and less apparent or which are also located closer to the observer's position, will seem to be more scattered, although their acc.u.mulation will be precisely related to this plane.

From this finally it will follow that, because from our solar system the system of fixed stars will be seen in the shape of a very large circle, our solar system will be in the same large plane and make one system with the fixed stars.

In order that much better to explore the arrangement of the common interrelations.h.i.+p governing this cosmic structure, we wish to try to discover the cause which has arranged the positions of the fixed stars in this way on a single common plane.

The Sun does not limit the extent of its powers of attraction to the narrow region of the planetary system. According to all observation, this power extends an infinite distance. The comets which go far above Saturn's...o...b..t are forced by the sun's powers of attraction to turn back and move in orbits. Whether it is more likely for the nature of a force apparently incorporated into the essence of matter to act without limits and whether, in addition, it will be really recognized as such by those who a.s.sume Newton's principles, we wish only to concede that this power of attraction of the sun extends approximately to the nearest fixed star and that the fixed stars act on each other as just so many suns in the same way. Thus, it follows that the entire host of fixed stars is forced to come closer together through this power of attraction, so that all the world systems are in a situation where sooner or later they fall into one clump, through this reciprocal moving closer together, which is continuous and unhindered, unless these systems are saved from this disaster by forces which pull away from the central point, as with the spheres in our planetary system.

These forces prevent the heavenly bodies from falling directly and, working together with the forces of attraction, bring about the timeless...o...b..ts. Thus the structure of creation will be preserved from collapse and has been created to last eternally.

Thus, all the suns in the firmament have an orbiting motion, either around one common central point or around many. But with them, we can everywhere apply the a.n.a.logy of what we observe about the orbital path of our own solar system, namely, that just as that very cause which subjects the planets to a force moving them away from the centre, through which they maintain their orbits, has organized their orbital paths so that they are all on a single plane, so also the cause, whatever it might be, which has given the suns and so many wandering stars of the higher world structure the force of their orbits has also brought their orbits as much as possible into one plane and has worked to limit deviation from this plane.

According to this conception, we can picture the system of fixed stars to a certain extent by means of the planetary system, if we magnify the latter infinitely. For if instead of six planets with their ten satellites we a.s.sume many thousands of similar bodies, and instead of the twenty-eight or thirty comets which we have observed, we a.s.sume a hundred or a thousand times more of them, and if we think of these bodies as generating their own light, then to the eye of the observer who looks out from earth it would appear as it does with the fixed stars of the Milky Way. For the above-mentioned planets, because of their close relations.h.i.+p to the common plane, would display to us on our earth located in exactly the same plane an area made up of countless stars densely lit, in the shape of a very large circle. This band of light would have a sufficient number of stars everywhere, although, according to this hypothesis, as moving stars, they are not fixed to a single spot. For, because of their movement, there would always be enough stars on anyone side, even though other stars had moved from that location.

The width of this illuminated area, which projects a sort of zodiac, will be set by the different levels of deviation of designated erratic stars from the reference plane and by the inclination of their orbits in relation to this same plane. Since most of them are near this plane, their number will appear more scattered in relation to the extent they are distant from it. However, the comets, which occupy all regions without distinction, will cover the field of heaven on both sides.

The shape of the heaven of fixed stars thus has no cause other than the same systematic arrangement on a grand scale as the cosmic structure of the planetary system on a small scale. All the suns in them make up one system, whose common connecting plane is the Milky Way. Those which are the least related to this plane will be seen to the side of it; for that reason however, they are less dense, more widely scattered, and less frequent. They are, so to speak, comets among the suns.

This new theory, however, attributes a forward motion to the suns, and yet everyone acknowledges that they are motionless and that they have been fixed in their positions from the start. The name which the fixed stars have acquired from this seems confirmed and unambiguous because of all the centuries of observation. This difficulty, if soundly based, would destroy the proposed theory. But this lack of movement, when we consider it, is only apparent. It is either only an exceeding slowness, caused by the enormous distance of their orbits from the common mid-point or an oversight brought about by the distant location of the observer. Let us estimate the plausibility of this notion by calculating the movement of one of the fixed stars located very close to our sun, a.s.suming that our sun is the central point of its...o...b..t. If, following Huygens, we a.s.sume that the distance of this star is over 21000 times greater than the distance of the sun from the earth, it then follows from the established law of the time of orbiting bodies, which is proportional to the square root of the cube of the distance from the mid-point, that this star must take more than one and a half million years to go around the sun and, what is more, in 4000 years it would have moved forward only about one degree. Now, perhaps only very few fixed stars are as close to the sun as Huygens a.s.sumed for Sirius. Thus, the distance of the rest of the heavenly host perhaps exceeds by far the distance of Sirius, and therefore most of them would take an unusually longer time for such periodic orbits. From this it is also more probable that the motions of the suns in the celestial stars go around a common point whose distance is much further away, and the forward motion of the stars can hence be exceedingly slow. So we can probably a.s.sume that all the time which human beings have been keeping records of celestial observations has been insufficient for them to notice the change which has taken place in these stellar positions. We should not, because of this, give up hope that we will discover this change in time. To achieve that will require subtle and careful observations, together with a comparison of widely distant observations. We must direct these measurements especially at the stars of the Milky Way (5), the main plane of all movement. Bradley has observed the almost imperceptible movements of the stars.

The ancients marked stars in particular places in the sky, and we see new ones in other places. Who knows that these ones have not just changed position? The excellence of the instruments and the perfecting of our knowledge of the stars give us ground to hope for the discovery of such remarkable and important observations (6). The credibility of the very issue supports this hope on the ground of nature and the a.n.a.logy so well, that it can stimulate the attentive work of scientists to bring it to completion.

The Milky Way is, so to speak, also the zodiac of new stars, alternately appearing and disappearing in this region in a way hardly matched in any other celestial area. If this alteration in their visibility proceeds from their periodic moving further away and closer to us, it seems clear from the proposed systematic arrangement of the stars, that such a phenomenon must, in all likelihood, be seen only in the region of the Milky Way. For there are stars there moving in very elongated orbits around other stars, as satellites move around their main planets. The a.n.a.logy with our planetary system, in which only heavenly bodies near the common plane of movement have a companion moving around them, requires that only the stars in the Milky Way have suns...o...b..ting around them.

I am coming to that part of the proposed theory which makes it most particularly attractive because of the sublime picture it presents of creation's plan. The series of ideas which has led me to it is short and simple. It consists of the following. If a system of fixed stars, all spatially related to a common plane, exactly as we have sketched out the Milky Way, is so far distant from us that all perception of individual stars making up the system is no longer possible, even with a telescope, if the distance of this system has exactly the same relations.h.i.+p to the distance of the stars in the Milky Way as the latter has to the distance of the sun from us, in short, if such a world of fixed stars is seen at such an immeasurable distance from the eye of the observer located outside this world, then this world will appear in a small angle as a tiny and weakly lit area, with a circular shape if its plane is oriented directly in the line of sight and elliptical if it is viewed from the side. The weakness of the light, the shape, and the recognizable extent of its diameter will be clearly distinguish such a phenomenon, when present, from all the stars which are seen individually.

We do not need to search a long time for this phenomenon among the observations of the astronomers. It has been clearly confirmed by different observers. People have wondered about its strangeness, have made a.s.sumptions, and have subscribed to sometimes wonderful imaginary images and sometimes plausible ideas, which, however, just like the former, had no basis. We are talking about the nebulous stars or, rather, a type of them, which Maupertuis wrote about as follows (7): there are small planets whose light is somewhat more than the darkness of the empty heavens, which all are alike in the fact that they display more or less open ellipses; but their light is much weaker than any other that we are aware of in heaven. The author of the Astrotheology imagines than these are openings in the firmament through which he believed he saw heavenly fire. A philosopher of illuminating insights, the above-mentioned Maupertuis, in thinking about the shape and the recognizable diameter of these stars, considers that they are astonis.h.i.+ngly large celestial bodies which display an elliptical shape because of the large flattening caused by their rotation, when viewed from the side.

It is easy to be convinced that this last explanation cannot hold. Because this kind of nebulous stars must undoubtedly be as far away from us as the other fixed stars, not only would their size be astonis.h.i.+ng (for in this respect they would have to exceed by a factor of many thousands the largest star), but the strangest point of all would be that with this extraordinary size, made up of self-illuminating bodies and suns, these stars should display the dimmest and weakest light.

Much more natural and comprehensible is the idea that there is no such single huge star but systems of many stars, whose distance makes them appear in such a narrow s.p.a.ce, that the light, which cannot be seen for each individual star because of the countless crowd of them, comes out in a uniform pale glow. The a.n.a.logy with the solar system in which we find ourselves, their shape, which is exactly as it must be according to our theory, the weakness of the light, which this previously mentioned distance requires, all these endorse perfectly the idea that these elliptical figures should be taken as exactly the same world structures and, so to speak, as Milky Ways, whose structure we have just gone through. And if suppositions in which a.n.a.logy and observations are in full agreement and support each other have the same value as formal proofs, then we must take the certainty of this system as demonstrated.

Now, the attentiveness of the astronomers has sufficient motivation to concern itself with this matter. The fixed stars, as we know, are all connected to a common plane and thus create a coordinated totality, a world of worlds. We see that in the immeasurable distances there are more such star systems and that creation in the entirely of its infinite extent is everywhere systematic and interconnected.

We could further suppose that these higher world orders are not unconnected to each other and through their mutual relations.h.i.+p establish once again an even more immeasurably great system. In fact, we see that the elliptical shapes of these sorts of nebulous stars, which Maupertuis mentions, have a very close relations.h.i.+p to the plane of the Milky Way. Here a wide field stands open for discovery, for which observation must provide the key. The properly named nebulous stars and those about which there is a dispute whether we should call them nebulous must be investigated and tested according to the guidelines of this theory. If we view the parts of nature according to a design and a plan we have discovered, then certain characteristics reveal themselves which otherwise will be overlooked and remain hidden, when observation squanders its time on all objects without any guidance.

The theory which we have proposed opens up for us a view of the infinite field of creation and offers an idea of the work of G.o.d appropriate to the infinite nature of the Great Masterbuilder. If the size of a planetary system in which the Earth is hardly seen as a grain of sand fills the understanding with wonder, how delightfully astonished we will be when we examine the infinite crowd of worlds and systems which fill the totality of the Milky Way. How much greater this wonder when we know that all these immeasurable orders of stars once again create a numbered unity, whose end purpose we do not know and which is perhaps, like the previous one, inconceivably large and yet, once again, still a unified system of a new numbered series. We see the first links of a progressive relations.h.i.+p of worlds and systems, and the first part of this unending progression allows us to recognize what we should a.s.sume about the totality.

Here there is no end, but an abyss of a true infinity, in which all capacity of human thought sinks, even when it is uplifted with the help of mathematics. The wisdom, goodness, and power which has revealed itself is limitless and, to exactly the same extent, fruitful and busy. The plan of its revelation must, therefore, be, just like it, without borders and timeless.

However, there are important discoveries to be made, and not just in large things serving to expand the ideas we can formulate about the magnitude of creation. In small things there is no less undiscovered, and we see even in our solar system the links of a system, which stand immeasurably far from one another and between which we have not yet discovered the intermediate parts.

Saturn is the outermost of the wandering stars which we known about. Must there be no more planets between Saturn and the least eccentric comet which perhaps comes down to us from a distance ten or more times removed, a planet whose orbit could approach more closely a comet's...o...b..t than Saturn does? And must not yet other planets be changing into comets by means of a series of intermediate types approximating the composition of comets and linking together the family of planets with the family of comets?