DIETERICH'S SUMMARY OF KANT'S THEORY. 177 



Corresponding to the process of the physical world, the 

 life of the spirit will therefore also, of course, exhibit an 

 ascending development, embracing all the possible degrees 

 of perfection. But we must not think of the spiritual 

 world as enclosed in the narrow frame of the history of man- 

 kind ; it doubtless extends over all the habitable heavenly 

 bodies. The mechanical cosmogony destroys in fact the 

 dream that man forms the ultimate goal of the whole 

 development of the world; and it makes us familiar with 

 the thought that the purpose of nature lies in the infinite 

 fulness of the manifold life which it brings forth every- 

 where. If we limit ourselves to the solar system, in our 

 speculative imaginings regarding the spiritual world, we 

 may suppose that the perfection of the inhabitants of the 

 planets constantly increases from Mercury to Saturn, so 

 that perhaps on Mercury a Greenlander or a Hottentot 

 would be considered a Newton, while on Saturn a Newton 

 would be wondered at as an ape. This thought is sug- 

 gested by the conjecture that the organization of the planets 

 becomes always finer with their greater distance from the 

 sun, corresponding to the diminution of their density in 

 that direction. For the more perfect the external physical 

 conditions of life are, that are furnished by the material 

 dwelling-place of spiritual beings, in virtue of all its 

 qualities, so much the more tender is the corporeal organ- 

 ization of these beings themselves. But with the greater 

 elasticity of the body, so far as we can observe, the 

 intellectual capabilities of the soul reach a higher develop- 

 ment. 



The dependence of the spiritual life on the physical 

 circumstances of a planet may serve as a guide for 

 analogical inferences as to the constitution of a spiritual 

 kingdom extended beyond the whole solar system, and it 

 is a manifest fact if we stop on the sure soil of our earth. 

 But here it must also form the starting point of a philo- 

 sophical view of the history of humanity. A History of 

 Civilization has to be founded upon a Natural History 

 of Mankind. Again, a Natural History of the Earth 

 joining on to the Universal Natural History of the 

 Heavens, is the presupposition of a Natural History of 

 Mankind. There thus grow out of the Natural History 

 of the Heavens two branches of special investigation in the 



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