88 KANT'S UNIVERSAL NATURAL HISTORY 



plane, and of which undoubtedly there must be an 

 immensely greater multitude than of the latter. Now, let 

 us apply this view in particular to the sun. If we would 

 estimate the breadth of the space in which the revolving 

 particles which have furnished their matter to the planets 

 have -diverged furthest from the common plane, it may 

 be assumed to be somewhat greater than the extent of 

 the greatest deviation of the planetary orbits from each 

 other. But in their divergence from the common plane 

 on both sides their greatest inclination to each other 

 scarcely makes an angle of 7^ degrees. Thus all the 

 matter out of which the planets have been formed may 

 be represented as having been spread out in that space 

 which was contained between two planes from the centre 

 of the sun enclosing an angle of 7^ degrees. Now a 

 zone of lYz degrees in breadth going in a direction of 

 the great circle of the sphere, is rather more than the 

 seventeenth part of the surface of the sphere; and there- 

 fore the solid space between the two planes that bound 

 the spherical space at the breadth of the angle mentioned 

 is rather more than the seventeenth part of the volume 

 of the whole sphere. Hence, according to this hypothesis, 

 all the matter which has been employed for the forma- 

 tion of the planets constitutes about the seventeenth 

 part of the matter which the sun has collected for its 

 composition out of that range of space which extends to 

 the furthest planet on both sides. But this central body 

 has an excess of mass over the sum total of all the 

 planets, such that it* stands to the latter not as 17:2 

 but as 650:1, according to the calculation of Newton. 

 And it is easy to see that in the regions of space be- 

 yond Saturn, where the planetary formations either cease 



