140 ON THE ORIGIN OF THE PLANETARY SYSTEM. 



ficent and malignant deities, giants, Kronos who 

 devours his children, Niflheim, with the ice-giant 

 Ymir, who is killed by the celestial Asas, 1 that out of 

 him the world may be constructed these are all figures 

 which fill the cosmogonic systems of the more culti- 

 vated of the peoples. But the universality of the fact, 

 that each people develops its own cosmogonies, and 

 sometimes in great detail, is an expression of the 

 interest, felt by all, in knowing what is our own origin, 

 what is the ultimate beginning of the things about 

 us. And with the question of the beginning is 

 closely connected that of the end of all things; for 

 that which may be formed, may also pass away. The 

 question about the end of things is perhaps of greater 

 practical interest than that of the beginning. 



Now, I must premise that the theory which I 

 intend to discuss to-day was first put forth by a man 

 who is known as the most abstract of philosophical 

 thinkers ; the originator of transcendental idealism 

 and of the Categorical Imperative, Immanuel Kant. 

 The work in which he developed this, the General 

 Natural Philosophy and Theory of the Heavens, is one 

 of his first publications, having appeared in his thirty- 

 first year. Looking at the writings of this first period 

 of his scientific activity, which lasted to about his 

 fortieth year, we find that they belong mostly to 

 1 Cox's Aryan Mythology, vol. i. 372. Longmans. 



