TRANSLATOR S INTRODUCTION XC111 



were in fact of supreme interest with Kant And so 

 at the very outset of his speculation, he secures its 

 Theistic basis, and will not advance a step till he has 

 firmly established the harmony of the mechanical 

 process of evolution with the being of God. He, 

 indeed, like Laplace, regards the mode in which 

 Newton brings in the interposition of God, in a 

 special act, to help him out of the insufficiency of 

 his physical explanation of the world, as weak and 

 untenable ; but, at the same time, he carries the whole 

 evolutionary process up to God, and finds it utterly 

 unthinkable without God. It _is not the exceptional 

 physical fact, as such, but all facts, whatever be their 

 nature, that prove the existence of God, according to 

 Kant. The pulse of his argument, at this stage, is 

 the empirically proved predetermination of all matter to 

 bring forth and realise certain beautiful results and 

 good ends, according to a perfect prior plan. ' There 

 is a God, just because Nature, even in chaos, cannot pro- 

 ceed otherwise than regularly and according to order* 

 (p. 26). And so he lays the basis of the true, modern 

 scientific Proof of the existence of God. We cannot 

 do better here than quote the words of M. Wolf, 

 who otherwise stands so strongly for Laplace rather 

 than for Kant. ' I also recommend,' says M. Wolf, 

 ' the reading of Kant's Preface. In dealing with 

 Cosmogony, says M. Faye, it is difficult not to shock 

 sentiments that deserve respect. It belongs to 

 the philosopher to show how the tendency of the 

 scientific mind to carry back the divine intervention 



