324 THE HISTORY OF CREATION, 



way as Lamarck's Theory of Descent does in Biology, and 

 especially in Anthropology. Both rest exclusively upon 

 mechanical or unconscious causes (causse efficientes), in no 

 case upon prearranged or conscious causes (causse finales). 

 (Compare above, p. 100-106). Both therefore fulfil all the 

 demands of a scientific theory, and consequently will remain 

 generally acknowledged until they are replaced by better 

 ones. 



I will, however, not deny that Kant's grand cosmogeny 

 has some weak points, which prevent our placing the same 

 unconditional confidence in it as in Lamarck's Theory of 

 Descent. The notion of an original gaseous chaos filling 

 the whole universe presents great difficulties of various 

 kinds. A great and unsolved difficulty lies in the fact that 

 the Cosmological Gas Theory furnishes no starting-point at 

 all in explanation of the first impulse which caused the 

 rotary motion in the gas-filled universe. In seeking for 

 such an impulse, we are involuntarily led to the mistaken 

 questioning about a " first beginning." We can as little 

 imagine a first beginning of the eternal phenomena of the 

 motion of the universe as of its final end. 



The universe is unlimited and immeasurable in both 

 space and time. It is eternal, and it is infinite. Nor can 

 we imagine a beginning or end to the uninterrupted and 

 eternal motion in which all particles of the universe are 

 always engaged. The great laws of the conservation of 

 force ^ and the conservation of matter, the foundations 

 of our whole conception of nature, admit of no other supposi- 

 tion. The universe, as far as it is cognisable to human 

 capability, appears as a connected chain of material phe- 

 nomena of motion, necessitating a continual change of 



