OF NATURE. 551 



hensive spirit the idea that the whole course of nature 

 would appear to a mind vastly more knowing than the 

 human mind, but not essentially different from it, in the 

 form of an intricate mathematical formula, in which only 

 the necessary values of the co-ordinates of time and 

 space would have to be introduced in order to afford a 

 positive knowledge of the largest as well as the minutest 

 phenomena. 



Neither the nebular hypothesis nor that which has 

 subsequently been termed the Laplacian world-formula 

 seem to have attracted much attention at the time. 

 Both the astronomical theory of the Universe and the 

 doctrine of Probabilities offered to students of science 

 such an enormous number of definite mathematical 

 problems leading to so many fruitful theories that the 

 scientific mind hardly grasped the ultimate philosophical 

 conclusions which were indicated rather than fully 

 explained. 



But in the further course of the century, when the 

 desire arose to supplant in the popular mind the fanciful 

 systems of the " Philosophy of Nature " by a sober and 

 practical mechanical theory, the suggestions of Laplace 

 were variously taken up, elaborated, and criticised. 1 



1 The nebular hypothesis owes additional support when Helmholtz 

 its introduction into philosophical brought forward his theory of the 

 literature in this country to Her- j generation and maintenance of the 

 bert Spencer, who, in one of his heat of the sun through the con- 

 earliest Essays (' Westminster Re- j tinued action of gravitational forces 

 view,' July 1858), made it do service (see his Lecture, ' Ueber die Wech- 

 in the interest of the development seIwirkungderNaturkraefte,'1854). 

 hypothesis, or what he had already, Before that time it is remarkable 

 hi the year 1852 ('Leader,' Jan. 1852 | how little attention it received on 

 and May 1854), termed the "theory i the part of scientific authorities 

 of Evolution." In Germany the \ of the first order. Thus neither 

 larger cosmical view, which the neb- i Whewell in his ' History of the 

 ular hypothesis afforded, received ! Inductive Sciences ' nor Humboldt 



