ii THE ARREST OF ENQUIRY 87 



of his age is seen in this immortal interpreter of 

 the laws of the universe wasting his later years on 

 an attempt to interpret unfulfilled prophecy. These 

 and others, as Locke, Leibnitz, Herder, and Schelling, 

 like the great Hebrew leader, have glimpses of a 

 goodly land which they were not themselves to 

 enter. But, perhaps, in the roll of illustrious men 

 to whom prevision came, none have better claim to 

 everlasting remembrance than Immanuel Kant For 

 in his Theory of the Heavens, published in 1755, he 

 anticipates that hypothesis of the origin of the 

 present universe which, associated with the suc- 

 ceeding names of Laplace and Herschel, has, under 

 corrections furnished by modern physics, common 

 acceptance among us. Then, as shown in the follow- 

 ing extract, Kant foresees the theory of the develop- 

 ment of life from formless stuff to the highest types. 

 'It is desirable to examine the great domain of 

 organised beings by means of a methodical com- 

 parative anatomy, in order to discover whether we 

 may not find in them something resembling a 

 system, and that too in connection with their mode 

 of generation, so that we may not be compelled to 

 stop short with a mere consideration of forms as 

 they are, which gives no insight into their genera- 

 tion, and need not despair of gaining a full insight 

 into this department of Nature. The agreement of 

 so many kinds of animals in a certain common plan 

 of structure, which seems to be visible not only in 

 their skeletons, but also in the arrangement of the 

 other parts, so that a wonderfully simple typical 

 form, by the shortening or lengthening of some 

 parts, and by the suppression and development of 



