TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION Ivii 



King shows how conscious Kant was of the im- 

 portance of the work. But the copies were not 

 destroyed nor lost, and although the exact year of 

 its subsequent publication cannot now be deter- 

 mined, yet the original edition did come into the 

 hands of the public, and it must have been exhausted 

 before the end of the century. I do not know of any 

 copy of the original edition existing in this country, 

 but copies of it remain in Germany, and the best 

 recent editions of it (as those of Hartenstein, Kehr- 

 bach, and A. J. v. Oettingen) have been carefully 

 collated with it, and its literary peculiarities indi- 

 cated. 



2. Kanfs Later Summary of the Work. In 1763 

 Kant published a philosophical treatise, entitled 

 The Only Possible Argument for a Demonstration 

 of the Existence of God, and in the seventh section 

 of its second division, he introduced a summary 

 of his ill-fated work of 1755, with an apology for 

 its length in the preface, and with a distinct reference 

 to it under its proper title in a footnote as 'having 

 become little known.' The section is entitled ' Cos- 

 mogony. An Hypothesis in the way of a Mechanical 

 Explanation of the Origin of the Heavenly Bodies, 

 and the Causes of their Motions, according to the 

 previously established Rules.' The summary is 

 lucid and comprehensive, and it was the means of 

 bringing Kant into correspondence with the cele- 

 brated astronomer, J. H. Lambert, who, in his 

 Cosmological Letters published two years before 



