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in hand with Helmholtz, have given their adhesion 

 generally to the principles of Kant's Cosmogony; 

 and their supreme authority in this country may 

 now be quoted as not only approving it, but as 

 working out its results, with all the available re- 

 sources of contemporary mathematical and physical 

 science. The Meteoric theory, which has been 

 rapidly supplanting the Ring hypothesis of Laplace, 

 and which is being worked out with special devotion 

 by our English scientists, is practically only the 

 development and empirical verification of Kant's 

 theory. The Dynamical theory of Heat is already 

 found potentially in Kant, even in reference to the 

 heat of the sun ; and the extraordinary progress 

 that has been made in recent years, by means of 

 spectrum analysis and other finer methods of 

 astronomical observation, all tend to give further 

 confirmation to Kant's views in detail. Lord Kelvin 

 thus sums up the position of the Meteoric theory : 

 ' The form of Meteoric theory which now seems 

 most probable, and which was first discussed on 

 true Thermodynamic principles by Helmholtz, con- 

 sists in supposing the sun and his heat to have 

 originated in a coalition of smaller bodies, falling 

 together by mutual gravitation, and generating as 

 they must do according to the great law demon- 

 strated by Joule, an exact equivalent of heat for the 

 motion lost in collision.' ! Again, recently, he founds 



1 Thomson and Tait : Treatise on Nattiral Philosophy, New ed. 

 I-, 493- 



