56 G. Hinrichs on Planetology. 
pothesis of Kant, and though this has been most grievously 
neglected by analysts and astronomers, still it now affords usa 
full solution of the four great harmonies ensuring the perm® 
nency of the solar world, and also solves most, and at leasti 
dicates the solution of, all other problems relating to the hap 
mony of the fundamental constants of the solar system. 
May we not hope that astronomers will begin to bestow 
this theory some share of their labor? 
§ 6. The Hypothesis. 
We assume, with Kant and Laplace, as the primitive condi 
tion of the solar system, or as nebula: 
The space of the solar system was filled with matter having a mr 
ment of rotation. = 
This matter is endowed with the same forces we know it 
posed of the elements we know here on earth, many of wh 
our 0 , 
rt of known elements. We therefore mean simply rs 
that at the above primitive period the elements had been le 
I hope at some future time to publish an attempt at a mechanical 
theory of the elementary bodies, which has occupied my time 10 
about ten years, and wherein I endeavor to show the ph 
properties of the known elements to be definite functions of 
atomic number and form. Accordingly, there would yet rem 
a more primitive condition, the existence of the one primifilt 
matter (Urstoff) which would be considered as the direct 
tion of the one Go 
m created matter alone the whole of the solar system has been 
veloped ; we would be enabled to conceive the almighty fiat 
it of . . . 
Rutherford, Astronomical Observat with the Spectroscope; this 
pono xxxv, 71. Above all, Bunsen’s and Kirchhoft's memoirs on their great 
* This Journal, 1864, xxvii, 52. ? 
