APPENDIX A. 



DIETERIOTS SUMMARY OF KANT'S THEORY OF TPIE 

 HEAVENS. 1 



NINE years after the appearance of his treatise on 

 the True Estimation of Living Forces, Kant published his 

 first important work under the title, Universal Natural 

 History and Theory of the Heavens, or an Essay on the 

 Constitution and the Mechanical Origin of the Whole 

 Universe, treated according to Newton s Principles. The 

 mechanical cosmogony which, at the close of his study 

 at the University, had formed the scientific dream 

 of his youth, he was able, at the beginning of his 

 academic career, to communicate to the world as a com- 

 plete theory, in this publication. The Natural History 

 of the Heavens was the ripe fruit of the thorough study 

 of physical science, and of the energetic philosophical 

 reflection which had occupied Kant, while engaged as a 

 family tutor, for nearly ten years ; and it is worthy of 

 being placed by the side of the most important products 

 of his scientific work in his later period. Here the critical 

 philosopher presents himself to us in the fresh, full vigour 

 of the productive power of his manhood, " with the courage 

 of the intellectual discoverer and conqueror " ; and we have 

 before us the result of his first striving after intellectual 

 achievement, the product of his youthful formative power, 

 which had been only announced in the treatise on the 

 mechanical controversy about the measuring of forces. 

 W. von Humbold cannot but carry our approval when he 



1 Kant und Newton, von Dr. Konrad Dieterich, Abschnitt II., pp. 

 16-33, Tubingen, 1876. 



