TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION Ixxi 



and there ensued a pleasant correspondence on 

 Philosophical topics, in which Lambert was also 

 keenly interested. Emphasising the remarkable 

 similarity of Kant's mode of thought with his own, 

 he even proposed that thereafter they should col- 

 laborate in their Philosophical work. But Kant 

 did not accede to that I Their relations, however, 

 continued most friendly ever after. 1 



6. Kant and Sir William HerscheL A quarter 

 of a century after Lambert's Cosmclogical Letters 

 appeared, Sir W. Herschel worked out again, and 

 again independently, a view of the 'Construction of 

 the Heavens,' closely resembling that of Kant ! 

 But this time the view was founded on patient 

 observation of the stars in the Milky Way with 

 unprecedented telescopic powers, and it was pre- 

 sented as the result of induction from newly dis- 

 covered facts. Sir W. Herschel says of himself : 

 ' A knowledge of the Construction of the Heavens, 

 has always been the ultimate object of my observa- 

 tions.' He presented his first views in two 

 Memoirs, published in 1784 and 1785, entitled On 

 tJie Construction of the Heavens. The view has 

 been popularised by his son, Sir John Herschel, 

 with his only too familiar illustration of the broad 



1 An abridged French translation of Lambert's Cosmologische Briefe 

 was published by M. Merian under the title " Systeme dti Monde" par 

 At. Lambert, piibliee par M. Merian, de F Academic des Sciences et belles 

 Lettres de Berlin, 2nd Ed., Berlin et Paris, 1784. Miss Agnes M. 

 Clerke refers to an English translation entitled The System of the World, 

 London, 1810. Mr. Gore gives an account of Lambert's Hypothesis. 



