158 KANT'S UNIVERSAL NATURAL HISTORY. 



the heavier and more inert matter, and the want of these 

 fire-supporting particles, make the planets only cold and 

 dead masses, destitute of this property of the flaming sun. 



This accession of such light materials is also the reason 

 why the sun has obtained its specifically lower density, 

 by which it is four times less dense than even our earth, 

 which is the third planet, in distance from it. Yet it is 

 natural to think that in this centre of the system, as in 

 its lowest place, the heaviest and densest kinds of matter 

 should be found, and that thereby, without the addition 

 of so great a mass of the lightest matter, it would yet 

 surpass the density of all the planets. 



The mixture of denser and heavier kinds of elements 

 with these lightest and most volatile particles serves like- 

 wise to make the central bo.dy fitted for bearing the 

 most violent glow of heat that may be burned and main- 

 tained on its surface. For we know that a fire in whose 

 supply of matter dense materials are found mixed with 

 those that are volatile, is greater in violence than that 

 flame which is maintained only by the light kinds of 

 matter. But this mingling of certain heavy kinds of 

 matter with lighter kinds is a necessary consequence of our 

 theory of the formation of the cosmic bodies; and it 

 has besides this advantage, that the force of the con- 

 flagration does not suddenly scatter the combustible 

 matter found on the surface, and that the conflagration 

 is gradually and constantly supported by the accession 

 of nourishment from the interior. 



The question having now been solved as to why the 

 central body of a great stellar system is a flaming ball, i.e. 

 a sun, it appears to be not superfluous to consider this 

 subject somewhat further, and to proceed to examine the 



