Ix KANT'S UNIVERSAL NATURAL HISTORY 



ness and accuracy both in his preface and text. 1 

 The convenient and excellent edition of A. J. von 

 Oettingen in Ostwald's Classics of the Exact Sciences^ 

 1898, has also been already referred to. 



VL KANT'S COSMOGONY IN ITS HISTORICAL 

 RELATIONS. 



The historical significance of Kant's Cosmogony 

 will be best understood by indicating some of its 

 most important relations to the past and to the 

 present. 



i. Kant and the Ancient Cosmogonies. Kant is 

 now recognised as the highest representative of the 

 independent, free critical spirit of the eighteenth 

 century. As such, he also exhibits its unhistorical 

 character and its comparative indifference to the 

 great thought-systems of the ancient world. Hence 

 we do not expect or find any high estimate or 

 appreciation of ancient thought in his early scien- 

 tific period, which was entirely modern both in its 

 interest and method. He admits, however, at the 

 outset a certain resemblance between his own 

 theory and that of Lucretius, Epicurus, Leucippus, 

 and Democritus ; in other words, he accepts the 

 standpoint of the ancient Atomistic School gener- 

 ally, while carefully repudiating and refuting its 

 Atheistic positions. He undoubtedly owed his 



1 Kehrbach collates the readings even more carefully than Harten- 

 stein had done, and points out some curious verbal peculiarities in 

 the original text, but these are of interest only to the German student. 



