1 8 KANT'S UNIVERSAL NATURAL HISTORY 



to continue the investigation will occupy them, and may 

 have the satisfaction of designating them by their own 

 names. 



I did not enter on the prosecution of this undertaking 

 until I saw myself in security regarding the duties of 

 religion. My zeal was redoubled when at every step I 

 saw the clouds disperse that appeared to conceal monsters 

 behind their darkness ; and when they were scattered I 

 saw the glory of the Supreme Being break forth with the 

 brightest splendour. As I now know that these efforts 

 are free from everything that is reprehensible, I shall 

 faithfully 'adduce all that well-disposed or even weak 

 minds may find repellent in my scheme; and I am ready 

 to submit to the judicial seventy of the orthodox Areopagus 

 with a frankness which is the mark of an honest conviction. 

 The advocate of the faith may therefore be first allowed 

 to make his reasons heard, in something like the following 

 terms : 



' If the structure of the world with all its order and 

 beauty,' he says, 'is only an effect of matter left to its 

 own universal laws of motion, and if the blind mechanics 

 of the natural forces can evolve so glorious a product out 

 of chaos, and can attain to such perfection of themselves, 

 then the proof of the Divine Author which is drawn from 

 the spectacle of the beauty of the universe wholly loses 

 its force. Nature is thus sufficient for itself; the Divine 

 government is unnecessary; Epicurus lives again in the 

 midst of Christendom, and a profane philosophy tramples 

 under foot the faith which furnishes the clear light needed 

 to illuminate it.' 



Even if I found some grounds for this objection, yet 

 the conviction which I have of the infallibility of Divine 



