28 KANT'S UNIVERSAL NATURAL HISTORY 



contained in so great an object? Such an undertaking 

 would be equivalent to saying : ' Give me matter only, and 

 I will construct a world out of it? Does not the weakness 

 of your insight, which comes to grief on the pettiest objects 

 daily presented to your senses and in your neighbourhood, 

 teach you that it is vain to try to discover the immeasur- 

 able, and what took place in nature before there was yet 

 a world? I annihilate this objection by clearly showing 

 that of all the inquiries which can be raised in connec- 

 tion with the study of nature, this is the one in which we 

 can most easily and most certainly reach the ultimate. 

 Just as among all the problems of natural science none 

 can be solved with more correctness and certainty than 

 that of the true constitution of the universe as a whole, 

 the laws of its movements, and the inner mechanism of 

 the revolutions of all the planets that department of 

 science in which the Newtonian philosophy can furnish 

 such views as are nowhere else to be met with; so I 

 assert, that among all the objects of nature whose first 

 cause is investigated, the origin of the system of the world 

 and the generation of the heavenly bodies, together with 

 the causes of their motions, is that which we may hope 

 to see first thoroughly understood. The reason of this is 

 easy to see. The heavenly bodies are round masses, and 

 therefore have the simplest formation which a body whose 

 origin is sought can possibly have. Their movements 

 are likewise uncomplicated; they are nothing but a free 

 continuation of an impulse once impressed, which, by 

 being combined with the attraction of the body at its centre, 

 becomes circular. Moreover, the space in which they 

 move is empty; the intervals which separate them from 

 each other are exceptionally large, and everything is thus 



