TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION ciii 



origin of our solar system and the Pre nebular conditions 

 of matter, would take us too far afield. Kant's view is by 

 no means overthrown by this objection ; but it may require 

 to be further determined, and it has many physical analogies 

 and indications in its favour. (3) A third objection 

 specially urged by M. Faye, and accepted by M. Wolf, 

 is that the planets and satellites, if formed according to 

 the ideas of Kant, would have a retrograde motion of 

 rotation. But this objection seems to apply rather to the 

 Ring theory of Laplace, from which M. Wolf has vainly 

 striven to vindicate it, than to the meteoritic view of Kant ; 

 and a more precise discrimination of the two theories will 

 also modify the incidence of the objection, or even entirely 

 meet it. The other objections raised or hinted relate to 

 mere incidental imperfections or erroneous conjectures 

 rather than to any essential position in Kant's view. (4) 

 Thus Kant's theory of the increasing eccentricity of the 

 orbits of the planets as they get more remote from the sun, 

 until they merge in a manner into the greater eccentricities 

 of the comets although it seems to have suggested his 

 happy anticipation of the discovery of further planets beyond 

 Saturn does not hold true in detail, and is particularly 

 contradicted by the orbit of Neptune, which is nearly 

 circular. (5) Again, much has been made of the error he 

 committed in his bold attempt to calculate the period of the 

 diurnal rotation of Saturn from the nature and relation of 

 its ring (pp. 118-9), which he made too small, just as he had 

 made the retardation of the rotation of the earth too great. 

 Here he makes the time to be 6 hours 23 minutes and 53 

 seconds. Afterwards, in the Summary of 1761, he made it 

 5 h. 40 m. But Sir VV. Herschel determined it by actual 

 observation to be 10 h. i6m., and Mr. Hall has recently 

 made it 10 h. 14 m. 24 s. M. Faye goes the length of saying 

 that when the observation of Herschel shewed that Kant 



