NA TURE 



413 



I 



THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1901. 



THE ORIGIN OF WORLDS. 

 Kanfs Cosmogony as in his Essay on the Retardation of 

 the Rotation of the Earth, and his Natural History 

 and Theory of the Heavens. With introduction, ap- 

 pendices, and a portrait of Thomas Wright of Durham. 

 Edited and translated by W. Hastie, D.D., Professor 

 of Divinity, University of Glasgow. Pp. cix + 205. 

 (Glasgow : James Maclehose and Sons, 1900.) 

 N this work Prof. Hastie has not only given us a very 

 readable book, but has written an important chapter 

 in the history of astronomy. His main object is to make 

 us recognise in Kant a profound genius, and to give ys 

 reasons for this appreciation. The author was well 

 advised, for Kant, in the domain of natural science, 

 enjoys a somewhat nebulous reputation. Few would 

 care to say with exactness what particular view Kant 

 supported concerning the origin of the cosmos, to what 

 extent he was assisted by earlier writers, or how much of 

 his work has been approved by later physicists. It 

 was inevitable that the work of Laplace, appearing at^a 

 later date and supported by a renown won by his suc- 

 cessful solution of problems connected with celestial 

 mechanics, should occupy a position of wider acknow- 

 ledgment and receive the assent of those who, unable to 

 add any support or offer effective criticism to his theory, 

 were content to rely upon his deservedly high reputation. 

 Thus it has come about that more than one writer has 

 owed his knowledge of Kant to very second-hand 

 sources, and while only very imperfectly apprehending 

 the f)oints of difference in the systems suggested 

 by the two philosophers, has allowed the later to 

 eclipse and supplant the work of the earlier 

 writer. Perhaps it is not too much to say that until 

 Prof. Newcomb's "Popular Astronomy" appeared, no 

 intelligent comparison between the theories of Kant and 

 Laplace could be found in any popular work written in 

 English. Prof. Hastie has, however, removed any 

 difficulty that any one might experience in endeavouring 

 to master Kant's views at first hand, and there is no 

 longer any excuse for incomplete knowledge. In excel- 

 lent English, and we have no doubt with faithful adhesion 

 to the original, he has given us more than all of that 

 portion of Kant's work which the author himself con- 

 sidered to be supported by fair demonstrable inferences. 

 This translation, indeed, oversteps the point at which 

 Kant authorised the publication of his work by J. F. 

 GensicTien in 1791. The remaining portion seems to 

 have been too imaginative and fanciful to receive the 

 support of Kant's maturer judgment, but Prof. Hastie 

 has translated the whole, and the part yet unpublished 

 may see the light if a favourable opportunity offers. 



Not only has Prof. Hastie given us Kant's views in 

 practically his own words, but by adding a sketch of the 

 theories of other writers of the period, such as Lambert 

 and Wright, and, later, those of Herschel and Laplace, 

 he has reconstructed the environment in which Kant 

 lived, and permitted us to see in some measure the 

 extent of his acquirements and the gradual increase of 

 later knowledge. To Wright, indeed, to whom Kant 

 NO. 1635. VOL. 63] 



admits his obligations, the translator has rendered an act 

 of justice by giving at very considerable length both the 

 account of his suggestions, as they appeared in the 

 Hamburgische Freyen Urtheile for 175 1, and De Morgan's 

 comments on Wright's hypothesis. Perhaps there was 

 less reason for dealing at equal length with Lambert and 

 the elder Herschel, but enough is given to permit the 

 relations between these old astronomers to be readily 

 apprehended. The result of the examination of Kant's 

 work, and of the comparison with other writers on the 

 same subject, has manifestly given Prof. Hastie very 

 exalted views of Kant's power and insight ; and by the 

 use of various expressions he invites us to declare that 

 " a greater than Newton is here." 



" Newton was too resolutely opposed to hypotheses not 

 directly founded upon empirical Jacts, and too anxious to 

 keep within the limits of exact calculation, to give reins 

 to his imagination in the physical sphere. But Kant, 

 gifted with a rare combination of empirical observation 

 and speculative thought, was especially equipped with a 

 genius that could grasp and combine the 'two worlds ' in 

 one" (p. Ixxxvi). 



And again — 



" His (Kant) evolutionary theory was thus co-extensive 

 with the Universe, and included all its parts and all its 

 developments. He was thus the precursor in the eight- 

 eenth century of Herbert Spencer and Darwin in the 

 nineteenth ; but he was greater than both in that he 

 established the general principles of which they have only 

 given particular expressions " (p. Ixxxvii). 



Laplace also fares badly at Prof. Hastie's discrimin- 

 ating hands — 



" Kant, indeed, does not write with the admirable 

 lucidity and ease of Laplace, but he has greater strength, 

 more intensity, richer poetic vision " (p. cvii). 



We doubt if this generous view of Kant's powers will 

 meet with a ready assent from many readers. But every 

 one will give him credit for the possession and develop- 

 ment of one great thought. He saw and appreciated 

 more clearly than any who had lived before him that the 

 creation of the Universe was the result of a process, and 

 not of an act or succession of acts, implying breaches of 

 continuity. He unfalteringly demanded the banishment 

 of all supernatural interferences from the ordered develop- 

 ment of nature, and perceived the possibility of deriving 

 the most complicated forms from the universal laws of 

 motion regulating the simplest elements of matter. To 

 rise above the trammels of dogmatic theology, and to 

 give scientific expression to the evolutional processes of 

 nature, were remarkable feats in his age and in the con- 

 dition of physical science, and much may be forgiven him 

 if in some of his details he shows a lack of accuracy, or 

 if some of his conceptions are in formal contradiction 

 with the principles of mechanics. And his reputation 

 will still stand high if we freely admit that there are 

 errors, or at least inconsistencies, in his cosmogony. 

 There is a tendency in the very able introduction of Prof. 

 Hastie to explain away these errors, and to contend for a 

 closer agreement between the views of Kant and modern 

 scientific theories than really exists. This treatment 

 seems to us injudicious, and tends to raise a spirit of con- 

 tradiction which really detracts from the very high 

 estimate any one must form of Kant, simply considered 

 by his work in the physical sciences. 



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