POPULAR SCIENTIFIC LECTURES. 



away. The question r.bout the cn.l of things 

 is perhaps of greater practical interest than 

 that of the beginning. 



Now, I must premise that the theory which 

 I intend to discuss to-day was first put forth 

 by ;i man who is known as the most abstract 

 of philosophical thinkers ; the originator of 

 transcendental idealism and of the Categori- 

 cal Imperative, Immanuel Kant. The work 

 in which ho developed this, the " General 

 Natural Philosophy nnd Theory of the Heav- 

 ons," is one of his first publications, having 

 appeared in his thirty-first year. Looking at 

 the writings of this first period of his scien- 

 tific activity, which lasted to about his forti- 

 eth year, we find that they belong mostly to 

 natural philosophy, and aro far in advance 

 of their times with a number of the happiest 

 ideas. His philosophical writings at this 

 period ar,o but few, and partly like his intro- 

 ductory lecture, directly originating in some 

 adventitious circumstance ; at the same time 

 the matter they contain is comparatively 

 without originality, and they are only impor- 

 tant from a destructive and partially sarcastic 

 criticism. It cannot be denied that the Kant 

 of early life was n natural philosopher by in- 

 Btinct and by inclination ; nnd that probably 

 only the power of external circumstances, the 

 want of the means necessary for independent 

 scientific research, and the tone of thought 

 prevalent at the time, kept him to philoso- 

 phy, in which it was only much later that he 

 produced anything original and important ; 

 for the "Kritik der reinen Vernunt't" ap- 

 peared in his fifty-seventh year. Even in the 

 later periods of his life, between his great 

 philosophical works, he wrote occasional 

 memoirs on natural philosophy, and regu- 

 larly delivered a course of lectures on physi- 

 cal geography. He was restricted in this to 

 the scanty measure of knowledge and of ap- 

 pliances of his time, and of the out-of-the- 

 way place where he lived ; but with a large 

 and intelligent mind he strove after such 

 more general points of view as Alexander von 

 Humboldt afterward worked out. It is ex- 

 actly an inversion of the historical connec- 

 tion, when Kant's name is occasionally mis- 

 used, to recommend that natural philosophy 

 shall leave the inductive method, by which 

 it has become great, to revert to the windy 

 speculations of a so-called <; dedxactivo 

 method." No one would have attacked such 

 A misuse more energetically nnd more in- 

 cisively than Kant himself if ho were still 

 among xis. 



The same hypothesis as to the origin of 

 our planetary system was advanced a second 

 time, but apparently quite independently of 

 Kant, by the most celebrated of French as- 

 tronomers, Simon, Marquis de Laplace. It 

 formed, as it were, the final conclusion of his 

 work on the mechanism of our system, ex- 

 ecuted with such gigantic industry and great 

 mathematical acuteness. You see from tho 

 names of these two men, whom we meet as 

 experienced and tried leaders in oxir course, 

 that in a view in which they both agree, wo 

 ba?e not to deal with a mere random. guess, 



but with a careful and well-considered at- 

 tempt to deduce conclusions as to tho Tin- 

 known past from known conditions of tha 

 present time. 



It is in the nature of the case, that ft hypo- 

 thesis as to the origin of the world which wo 

 inhabit, and which deals with things in the 

 rnost t distant past, cannot be verified by di- 

 rect observation. It may, however, receive 

 direct confirmation, if, in the progress of 

 scientific knowledge, new facts accrue to 

 those already kn<\ .\, and like them are ex- 

 plained on the hy\ thesis ; and particularly 

 if survivals of the ), oeesses, assumed to hav (1 

 taken place in the formation of the heavenly 

 bodies, can bo proved to exist in tho present. 

 Such direct confirmations of various kinds 

 have, in fact, been formed for the view we 

 are about to disutv-w, and have materially in- 

 creased it: probability. 



Partly this fact, and partly tho fact that the 

 hypothesis in question has recently been 

 mentioned ia popular and scientific books, 

 in connection with philosophical, ethical, 

 and theological questions, have emboldened 

 me to speak of it here. I intend not so mucli 

 to tell you anything substantially new in 

 reference to it, aa to endeavor to give, as 

 connectedly a.-} possible, the reasons which 

 have led to and have confirmed it. 



These apologies which I must premise, 

 only apply to t:io fact that I treat a theme 01 

 this kind as a popular lecture. Science i. 

 not only entitled, but ia indeed beholden, t ; 

 mako such nn investigation. For her it ia a 

 definite and important question tho ques- 

 tion, namely, as to tho existence of limits t:: 

 the validity of the laws of nature, which rule 

 all that now surrounds us ; tho question 

 whether they have always held in tho yast, 

 and whether they will always hold im the 

 future ; or whether, on the supposition, of an 

 everlasting uniformity of natural laws^ oui 

 conclusions from present circumstances, as tc 

 the past, and as to the future, imperatively 

 lead to an impossible state of things. ; that i, 

 to tha necessity of an infraction of. natural 

 laws, of a beginning which could not havt 

 been due to processes known to us. Henco, 

 to begin such an investigation as to the pos 

 Bible or probable primeval history of oui 

 present world, is, considered as a question oi 

 science, no idle speculation, but a question a? 

 to the limits of it.s methods, and as to the ox 

 tent to which existing laws ara valid. 



It may perhaps apnour rash that wo, re- 

 stricted as we arc, in the circle of /~ur obser- 

 vations in space, by onr position on thii- 

 little earth, which i but as a grain of dusl 

 in our milky way ; and limited in time by 

 the short duration of the human race $ thai 

 we should attempt to appJy the laws whicli 

 we have deduced from the confined circle oi 

 facts open to us, t j the whola rango of infi- 

 nite spaco, mill of time- from everlasting to 

 everlasting. l>ut all our thought and oui 

 action, in tho greatest as well as .in tho least, 

 is based on our c mfidenco ia the unchange- 

 able order of n iture. and this confidence hua 

 hitherto boon uio morn /justified, the deepei 



