154 KANT'S UNIVERSAL NATURAL HISTORY 



of attraction and repulsion will again combine to repeat 

 the old creations and the systematically connected move- 

 ments, with not less regularity than before, and to present 

 a new universe. If, then, a particular planetary system has 

 fallen to pieces in this way, and has again restored itself 

 by its essential forces, nay, when it has even repeated 

 this play more than once, then at last the period will 

 approach which will gather in the same way the great 

 system of which the fixed stars are members into one 

 chaos through the falling of their movements. Here it 

 will still less be doubted that the reunion of such an 

 infinite multitude of masses of fire as these burning suns 

 are, together with the train of their planets, will disperse 

 the matter of their masses when dissolved by the ensuing 

 unspeakable heat into the old space of their sphere of 

 formation, and will there furnish materials for new pro- 

 . ductions by the same mechanical laws, whereby the waste 

 space will again be animated with worlds and systems. 

 When we follow this Phoenix of nature, which burns 

 itself only in order to revive again in restored youth from 

 its ashes, through all the infinity of times and spaces ; 

 when it is seen how nature, even in the region where it 

 decays and grows old, advances unexhausted through new 

 scenes, and, at the other boundary of creation in the 

 space of the unformed crude matter, moves on with 

 steady steps, carrying on the plan of the Divine revela- 

 tion, in order to fill eternity, as well as all the regions 

 of space, with her wonders : then the spirit which medi- 

 tates upon all this sinks into profound astonishment. But 

 unsatisfied even yet with this immense object, whose 

 transitoriness cannot adequately satisfy the soul, the 

 mind wishes to obtain a closer knowledge of that Being 



