96 KANT'S UNIVERSAL NATURAL HISTORY 



Saturn which, by their greater deviation from the path of 

 circular orbits, approach nearer that of comets, and that 

 it is only owing to the want of observation, or even to 

 the difficulty of it, that this affinity has not been long 

 since presented as visibly to the eye as it appears to the 

 understanding. In the first chapter of this Second Part 

 of our Essay, we have already indicated a cause which 

 can make eccentric the orbit of a heavenly body that is 

 forming itself out of the matter floating around it, although 

 it is held that this matter in all its positions possesses 

 forces exactly determined for circular motion. For as 

 the planet gathers them from distances far apart from 

 each other and where the velocities of the circular paths 

 are different, these forces come together in it with various 

 degrees of revolving motion inherent in them which 

 deviate from the ratio of the velocity that corresponds to 

 the distance of the planet, and thereby cause an eccen- 

 tricity in its orbit, in so far as their different impacts 

 want the particles required to compensate completely for 

 their deviation from each other. 



If the eccentricity of the heavenly bodies had no other 

 cause than this, it would be everywhere kept within 

 moderate bounds. It would also be less in the small 

 planets and those that are far removed from the sun 

 than in those that are near and large, on the supposition 

 that the particles of the primitive matter actually had 

 previously exact circular movements. But these determina- 

 tions do not agree with observation \ because, as already 

 remarked, the eccentricity increases with the distance 

 from the sun and the smallness of the masses appears 

 rather to make an exception to the increase of the 

 eccentricity as seen in Mars. Hence, we are compelled to 



