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. 



