240 ^ag S*rm0ns, (Essags, anfr Uebietos. [xi. 



in the direction of rotation among the celestial bodies, 

 for Saturn's ring, and for the zodiacal light. He finds 

 in each system of worlds, indications that the attractive 

 force of the central mass will eventually destroy its orga- 

 nization, by concentrating upon itself the matter of the 

 whole system ; but, as the result of this concentration, 

 he argues for the development of an amount of heat 

 which will dissipate the mass once more into a molecular 

 chaos such as that in which it began. 



Kant pictures to himself the universe as once an 

 infinite expansion of formless and diffused matter. At 

 one point of this he supposes a single centre of attraction 

 set up ; and, by strict deductions from admitted dynamical 

 principles, shows how this must result in the development 

 of a prodigious central body, surrounded by systems of 

 solar and planetary worlds in all stages of development. 

 In vivid language he depicts the great world-maelstrom, 

 widening the margins of its prodigious eddy in the slow 

 progress of millions of ages, gradually reclaiming more 

 and more of the molecular waste, and converting chaos 

 into cosmos. But what is gained at the margin is lost 

 in the centre ; the attractions of the central systems 

 bring their constituents together, which then, by the heat 

 evolved, are converted once more into molecular chaos. 

 Thus the worlds that are, lie between the ruins of the 

 worlds that have been and the chaotic materials of the 

 worlds that shall be ; and in spite of all waste and 

 destruction, Cosmos -is extending his borders at the 

 expense of Chaos. 



Kant's further application of his views to the earth 

 itself is to be found in his " Treatise on Physical Geo- 

 graphy" 1 (a term under which the then unknown science 

 of geology was included), a subject which he had studied 

 with very great care and on which he lectured for many 



1 Kant's "Sammtliche Werke," Bd. viii. p. 145. 



