TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION Ixxxv 



region of the stellar world known to us, only Saturn is 

 provided with a ring system, while all the intermediate 

 stages from the original process of agglomeration through 

 the formation of rings and satellites are not represented ; 4 

 with the exception of the asteroids, and in their case very 

 conditionally, there is no example known in which a 

 plurality of satellites move at nearly the same distance from 

 the central body; 5 the axis of most of the planets have 

 an inclination to the plane of their path, that of Uranus 

 being apparently even perpendicular to it. If the planets 

 and moons have received into them the sum of all the 

 moments of motion contributed to the rings thrown off, then 

 their axis of rotation must naturally be perpendicular to the 

 plane of the ring, or, later, that of the path. The actual 

 inclinations compel us to assume irregularities which are not 

 founded in the process as a whole ; 6 the Laplace theory 

 is still owing a demonstration of the origin of comets and 

 meteors; 7 the mere existence of a Mars moon, whose 

 period of revolution is shorter than the planet's period of 

 rotation, and yet in harmony with Kepler's laws, of itself 

 alone overthrows the whole theory of the separation of rings ; 

 and the same follows from the mere fact of the retrograde 

 motion of a moon of Uranus.' Kant oder Laplace, p. 2. 



8. Kant and Cosmic Evolution. Kant is undoubt- 

 edly to be regarded as the great founder of the 

 modern scientific conception of Evolution. There 

 were vast conceptions of the evolution of the world 

 even in ancient times, worked out by the thinkers of 

 India and Greece, but their ideas were mostly mere 

 products of the imagination, often extremely fantastic, 

 and, at the best, pantheistic, vague, and unverified. 

 Nor did any of the modern predecessors of Kant 



