140 KANT'S UNIVERSAL NATURAL HISTORY 



embrace the manifestations of the Supreme Being, if it is 

 not combined with the infinitude of space. It is true that 

 development, form, beauty, and perfection are relations 

 of the elements and the substances that constitute the 

 matter of the universe, and this is perceived in the 

 arrangements which the wisdom of God adopts at all 

 times. It is also most conformable to that wisdom that 

 these relations and arrangements should be evolved out 

 of their implanted universal laws by an unconstrained 

 consecution. And hence it may be laid down, with good 

 reason, that the arrangement and institution of the universe 

 comes about gradually, as it arises out of the provision 

 of the created matter of nature in the sequence of time. 

 But the primitive matter itself, whose qualities and forces 

 lie at the basis of all changes, is an immediate consequence 

 of the Divine existence ; and that same matter must there- 

 fore be at once so rich and so complete, that the develop- 

 ment of its combinations in the flow of eternity may extend 

 over a plane which includes in itself all that can be, which 

 accepts no limit, and, in short, which is infinite. 



If, therefore, the creation is infinite in space, or at 

 least has really been so in its matter from the beginning, 

 and is ready to become so in form or development, then 

 the whole of space will be animated with worlds without 

 number and without end. Will then that Systematic Con- 

 nection, which we have already considered in particular 

 in regard to all the parts of the world, extend to the 



nature of numbers, in so far as, on careful consideration, it may still 

 be regarded as a question requiring explanation. And so I ask, 

 whether that which a higher Power, accompanied with the highest 

 wisdom, has produced in order to reveal itself, does not stand in the 

 relation of a differential quantity to that which it was able to producel 



