The Phoenix of Nature: Fire and Evolutionary Cosmology in Wright and Kant

Kant Immanuel , Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels , in Werke (Berlin, 1902), i, 314–15; Kant's Cosmogony, tr. Hastie W. (Glasgow, 1900), 145–6.

The contradiction between a stable universe and any possible change had far-reaching consequences. For Newton, see Kubrin D. , “Newton and the Cyclical Cosmos: Providence and the Mechanical Philosophy”, Journal for the history of ideas, xxviii (1967), 325–46, and a reply by Jaki S. in “The History of Science and the Idea of an Oscillating Universe” in Cosmology-history-theology, ed. by Yourgrau W. and Breck A. (New York, 1977), 233–51. An interesting discussion of some political aspects is in Domson C. A. , Nicolas Fatio de Duillier and the prophets of London, unpublished Yale Ph.D. thesis (1972), 107–11. On Herschel see Hoskin M. A. , William Herschel and the construction of the heavens (London, 1963), 66–69.

Wright Thomas , An original theory or new hypothesis of the universe (1750; repr. London, 1971). See Hoskin M. A. , “The Cosmology of Thomas Wright of Durham”, Journal for the history of astronomy, i (1970), 44–52.

Wright Thomas , Second or singular thoughts upon the theory of the universe, ed. by Hoskin M. A. (London, 1968). See editor's introduction, 11–12.

Wright , Original theory, 62–63.

Wright , Second thoughts, i, 32. For the earthquake see Kendrick T. B. , The Lisbon earthquake (London, 1956), 58–59 and 70–71. Wright cites “the repeated and extensive shocks of the late earthquake at Lisbon”, Second thoughts, i, 5.

Wright , Original theory, 61: “… by proper Objects, selected from both, attended with just Reflections, we may certainly raise our Ideas almost to the Pitch of Immortals.”

Wright , Second thoughts, iii, 26. Compare the similar arguments of John Ray in Miscellaneous discourses concerning the dissolution and changes of the world (London, 1692), 174ff, and Hakewill George , An apologie or declaration of the power of God in the world (London, 1635), 103–18.

On Wright's idea that astronomy is the knowledge of God see his Clavis coelestis (London, 1742), xii; Original theory , 76–77 and 84. On his idea that any man can know God from nature see Second thoughts, preface, 6–7. Wright continues: “We must be very careful to attribute nothing to y^e invisible powers of Providence that is repugnant to its visible laws, & of which our senses and our judgments are y^e tests”, and he quotes Locke in support of this and other common ideas.

Wright , Second thoughts, ii, 18.

Wright MSS, Central Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, vol. viii (I would like to thank Dr M. A. Hoskin for providing me with a summary of these papers). For the two strategies see Pemberton Henry , A view of Sir Isaac Newton's philosophy (London, 1728), 180–1, and Whiston William , Astronomical principles of religion natural and reveal'd (London, 1717), 87–89.

Whiston , Astronomical principles, 111–14. On Whiston see Casini P. , L'Universo-macchina: Origini della filosofia newtoniana (Bari, 1969), 83–107, and Metzger H. , Attraction universelle et religion naturelle chez quelques commentateurs anglais de Newton (Paris, 1938). Whiston is the principal source for Wright's ideas on worlds inside the Sun and on orbiting stars. See Astronomical principles, 88–89 and 93–96.

Whiston , Astronomical principles, 112–13. On power in matter, see Heimann P. M. and McGuire J. E. , “Newtonian Forces and Lockean Powers: Concepts of Matter in Eighteenth Century Thought”, Historical studies in physical sciences, iii (1971), 246–51.

Whiston , Astronomical principles, 113.

Whiston , A new theory of the Earth from its original to the consummation of all things (London, 1696), 218. Compare Thomas Baker's idea in 1700 that in view of the failure to rationalize gravity, it would be necessary to “content oneself with ascribing all to the power and providence of God” ( Metzger , Attraction universelle, 23, n. 3). The most radical criticism of this idea is in John Toland's Letters to Serena (London, 1704), 185 and 208. See Jacob M. C. , “John Toland and the Newtonian Ideology”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, xxxii (1969), 307–31.

Keill John , An examination of Dr Burnet's Theory of the Earth (London, 1698; 2nd edn, 1734, p. 347), writes: “Altho' Mr Whiston has been pleased to ridicule my fondness for Miracles, yet since all the natural causes he has assign'd are so vastly disproportionate to the effects produced, he may at least perhaps be convinc'd that the easiest, safest, and indeed the only way is to ascribe 'em to Miracles.” Compare Derham's Astro-theology (London, 1705), 210–11, cited by Wright in Original theory, 7.

Cudworth R. , True intellectual system of the universe (London, 1678), i, 222ff: “There is a plastic nature under Him, which, as an inferior and subordinate instrument, doth drudgingly execute that part of His providence, which consists in the regular and orderly motion of matter.” See Cragg G. R. , The Cambridge Platonists (Oxford, 1968), 213–14 and McGuire J. E. , “Neoplatonism and Active Principles”, in Westman Robert S. and McGuire J. E. , Hermeticism and the scientific revolution (Los Angeles, 1977).

Whiston , Astronomical principles, 128.

Whiston , Astronomical principles, 144: “All such defects or irregularities which must in length of time according to the settled Laws of Nature, arise in our Present Constitution, appear to have been hitherto so very small and inconsiderable since the beginning of this Settlement, that we have thereby certain evidence that its Age cannot be very much greater and no Evidence that it is at all greater than what is contain'd in the Sacred Chronology.” Whiston is very critical of Halley's attempt to determine the age of the world as much older than Scripture suggests (p. 142). See Halley in Philosophical transactions, xxix (1715), 299.

Whiston , Astronomical principles, 87–89. Whiston argues that because of aether resistance and gravity, both planets and stars will collapse “unless a Miraculous Power interposes to hinder it”. See Hoskin M. A. , “Newton, Providence and the Universe of Stars”, Journal for the history of astronomy, viii (1977), 77–101.

For a survey of Wright's sources, see Hoskin M. A. , “The English Background to the Cosmology of Wright and Herschel”, in Cosmology-history-theology (ref. 2), 219–31.

Wright quotes Addison from the Spectator, 25 October 1712, in Second thoughts, preface, 2. On Newton's ideas on the circulation of fire see Kubrin D. , Providence and the mechanical philosophy: The creation and dissolution of the world in Newtonian thought, Cornell Ph.D. thesis (1968), 35ff; and Figala K. , “Newton as Alchemist”, History of science, xv (1977), 102–37, p. 135 (quoting Keynes MS 33 f5^v): “For y^e combustible having in them corrupt stinking feces or drossy matter wch maketh subject to corruption, & shall in y^e period & general refining day be purged through fire, & then God will make new heavens & new Earth & bring all things to a crystalline clearness….”

Bachelard G. , The psychoanalysis of fire (London, 1964), 71–73: “It is always the thought that is twisted and defeated” (p. 59). For an examination of the concept of the ‘sub-stantialist’ and ‘animist’ obstacle see Bachelard G. , La formation de l'esprit scientifique (Paris, 1938), 131–9, and in Lecourt D. , Marxism and epistemology (London, 1975), 69. Bachelard is explicitly talking about the ‘internalisation’ of power in substance which the philosophy of fire represents. I argue that this substantialization of activity is the crucial step in the rationalization of evolution in eighteenth-century cosmology.

Bachelard sees the alchemical project as totally divorced from subsequent theories of matter: The one is ‘psychological’, the other ‘scientific’. He writes: “L'onorisme des alchimistes est puissant. A l'étudier on pénètre dans des couches profondes du psychisme humain et tout psychologue de l'inconscient trouvera une mine inépuisable d'images dans la littérature alchimique” (Le materialisme rationnel (Paris, 1953), 103).

Valentine Basil , The triumphal chariot of Antimony (reprint, London, 1962), 193–4. There are five types of fire: (i) the love of God, (ii) the Sun, (iii) corporeal fire, (iv) the final conflagration, (v) hell. See Debus A. G. , “Fire Analysis and the Elements in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries”, Annals of science, xxiii (1967), 127–47.

On eighteenth-century matter theory and the philosophy of fire, see for example, Metzger H. , Newton, Stahl, Boerhaave et la doctrine chimique (Paris, 1930); Thackray A. , Atoms and powers (Cambridge, Mass., 1970); Schofield R. , Mechanism and materialism (Princeton, 1970), 138–56; Love R. , “Some Sources of Hermann Boerhaave's Concept of Fire”, Ambix, xix (1972), 157–74; Heimann P. M. , “Nature is a Perpetual Worker”, Ambix, xx (1973), 1–25; Knight D. M. , “The Vital Flame”, Ambix, xxiii (1976), 5–15.

Boerhaave's Elementa chemiae (Leiden, 1732) was translated into English by Dallowe T. as Elements of chemistry (London, 1735): A pirated version of the lectures, Institutiones et experimenta chemiae (Paris, 1724) was translated by Peter Shaw as A new method of chemistry (London, 1727). Shaw's translation of Elementa appeared as a second edition of the New method in 1741. See Davis T. L. , “Vicissitudes of Boerhaave's Textbook of Chemistry”, Isis, x (1928), 33–46. On Boerhaave's ideas see Love , op. cit. (ref. 26), and Metzger , op. cit. (ref. 26), 221. Boerhaave argues that fire is equally present everywhere (Elements, i, 114–21) and that in all natural processes it is the chief agent (i, 230 sq). See Gibbs F. , “Peter Shaw and the Revival of Chemistry”, Annals of science, vii (1951), 211–37.

In Siris (1744) Berkeley identified fire as a “diffused and active principle, which … shakes the earth and heavens” (Works, v (Edinburgh, 1953), 11 sq). The Marquise de Châtelet said that “everything in Nature is in perpetual oscillation of expansion and contraction through the action of Fire” (quoted in Bachelard , Psychoanalysis of fire, 81). Samuel Johnson of New York noted that it was remarkable that the same conclusion on the role of fire was found in Scripture and in Berkeley, Franklin, Colden, and other natural philosophers ( Kuhn A. J. , “Glory or Gravity: Hutchinson versus Newton”, Journal of the history of ideas, xxii (1961), 302–22).

Robinson Bryan , Dissertation on the aether of Sir Isaac Newton (Dublin, 1743), 93 and 119; Knight Gowin , An attempt to demonstrate that all the phenomena in nature may be explained by two simple active principles attraction and repulsion (London, 1748), 59; Colden Cadwallader , Principles of action in matter (London, 1751), 28; Rowning John , A compendious system of natural philosophy (London, 1737–43), iii. See Schofield , Mechanism and materialism, 130–3 and 176–80; Heimann , “Nature is a Perpetual Worker”, 14–17; Heimann P. and McGuire J. E. , “Newtonian Forces and Lockean Powers”, Historical studies in the physical sciences, iii (1971), 296–303.

Ray John , Miscellaneous discourses concerning the dissolution and changes of the world (London, 1692), 140 and 171. See Collier K. , Cosmogonies of our fathers (New York, 1934), 98–99.

Leibniz to Hartsoeker (12 December 1706) in Die philosophischen Schriften , ed. Gerhardt G. (Berlin, 1875–90), iii, 490. Compare Wright's belief in the frequent catastrophes suffered by the Earth, Wright MSS (ref. 11), vol. iv. For the relation between catastrophism and the importance of continuity see Foucault M. , The order of things (London, 1970), 150; Lovejoy A. , The great chain of being (Cambridge, Mass., 1936 and 1964), 264 sq.

Kuhn , “Glory or Gravity”, 316, n. 7. See, for example, the Boehmenist Richard Symes and his Fire analysed, or the several parts of which it is composed demonstrated by experiments (Bristol, 1771).

Polonoff I. , Force, Cosmos, Monads and other themes of Kant's early thought (Bonn, 1973), 73. See Adickes E. , Kant als Naturforscher (Berlin, 1924–25), i, 81.

Hutchinson believed that the fluid of light, spirit, and fire “keeps itself in a perpetual Irradiation or Circulation, at, to, and from the Orb of the Sun, and to and from the limits or Circumference” ( Hutchinson J. , Philosophical and theological works, 3rd edn (London, 1748–49), xi, 29). In Glory or gravity he compares the action of the Sun to that of a steam-engine (Works, xi, 71–85), and argues that fire has the capacity to extend its activity infinitely through matter (xi, 140). However, Hutchinson also denies absolutely that there could be autonomous material activity: “The Devil's first Crime was, doubtless, supposing some incommunicable Powers in himself; his second, Attributing such to Matter …” (v, 110). This theory can only be understood as part of a political and theological ideology: This is emphasised by the work of Hutchinson's disciple William Jones in An essay on the first principles of natural philosophy (London, 1762), 7. See the study of this problem in Wilde C. , “Hutchinsonianism and the Problem of ‘ians’ and ‘isms’ in the History of Eighteenth Century Natural Philosophy” (unpublished paper, Darwin College, Cambridge, 1978); Cantor G. N. , “Cabbala and Cosmology” in Jordanova L. and Porter Roy (eds), Images of the Earth (British Society for the History of Science, forthcoming, 1978); Wasserman E. R. , “Nature Moralized”, ELH, xx (1953), 39–76, pp. 63 sq. Hutton's matter theory is discussed in Heimann , “Nature is a Perpetual Worker”, 17–23. See Hutton's Dissertations on different subjects in natural philosophy (Edinburgh, 1792), 214.

Hutton , Dissertations, 246; Jones , Essay, 22. On Hutton's theory of matter and heat and its influence on his geology, see Gerstner P. A. , “James Hutton's Theory of the Earth and his Theory of Matter”, Isis, lix (1968), 26–31.

Whiston , New theory of the Earth , 69, 126 and 368; Astronomical principles, 139–52; Halley E. , “Some Considerations about the Cause of the Universal Deluge”, Philosophical transactions, xxxiii (1724), 118–25 (read December 1694, see British Library Add MS 4478b, ff. 142–50). For the most detailed commentary on the importance of Halley's comet see De Lalande J. J. le F. , Tables astronomiques de M. Halley (2nd edn, Paris, 1759). Lambert was very influenced by the comet mania; see Lambert J. H. , Cosmological letters, tr. Jaki S. L. (Edinburgh, 1976), 18–19.

Whiston , Astronomical principles, 92–93.

Whiston , Astronomical principles, 23.

Newton's idea that comets replenish the active matter in the world was developed throughout his career. In 1675 he told Oldenburg that comets replenish stars and planets alike (Correspondence, i, ed. by Turnbull H. W. (Cambridge, 1959), 366); in 1687 in a draft Conclusio to the Principia he stated that comets only replenish the Earth and planets, thus increasing the mass of these bodies ( Unpublished papers , ed. by Hall A. R. and Hall M. B. (Cambridge, 1962), 341 sq.); and at the end of the second edition of the Principia (1713) he insisted upon this circulation of activity via comets' tails as evidence of God's design (see draft in CUL Add MS 3965 f 152^v). These ideas were extended into a general theory of circulation from planets via comets to stars in a conversation with Conduitt in 1724/5 (Keynes MS 130, n^o 11). Through these ideas, the notion of comets as the circulating bearers of activity became a commonplace: See Gregory's Elements of physical and geometrical astronomy (London, 1728), ii, 853; Pemberton H. , View of Sir Isaac Newton's philosophy (London, 1728), 245; Hill John , Urania (London, 1754), s.n. “comets”; and Cowley J. , A discourse on comets (London, 1757), 36 sq. Gregory's memorandum of June 1705 is discussed in McGuire J. E. , “Transmutation and Immutability; Newton's Doctrine of Physical Qualities”, Ambix, xiv (1967), 69–95, p. 87. See Kubrin , “Newton and the Cyclical Cosmos” (ref. 2).

Swinden T. , Enquiry into the nature and place of hell (2nd edn, London, 1727), 61. Swinden's sources are John Ray (69), Thomas Burnet (76) and Christiaan Huygens (112) on the Sun and fire. See Walker D. P. , The decline of hell (London, 1964); Patrides C. A. , Milton and the christian tradition (London, 1966). Wright uses Whiston's translation of Josephus on hell (Second thoughts, ii, 18).

Swinden , Enquiry, 141 (my italics). See pp. 114–15 and 183–6. “When God shall think fit to put an end to this World … all those heavenly bodies which now move with so much Harmony and Exactness, shall then be no more, they shall shrivle together like a Scroll of parchment” (p. 138). Swinden's argument is that there is no room inside the Earth for hell, and since there is no Biblical statement on the sins of other star systems, we might as well suppose our Sun is special. For the important belief in the final conflagration and the reformation of the Earth see Tuveson E. , Millenium and Utopia (Berkeley, 1949), 17 and 94, on the work of Henry More, Thomas Burnet, and their contemporaries.

Wall William in Swinden, Enquiry , 355. Wall is not the only writer to speculate about planets beyond Saturn; see Second thoughts, 45, n. 64. Wall's essay A threefold motion of the Earth (London, 1720) has an appendix on comets.

Second thoughts, iii, 14–15. Swedenborg's Principia postulates an original point which generates the universe. See Bowers J. E. , Suns and worlds of the universe (London, 1899). Wright also draws on the ideas of Robert Fludd (ii, 13–14).

Swedenborg , Principia, tr. Clissold A. (London, 1846), ii, 236–51. He describes a continuing creation flowing through God from a central generating point in the Sun: “at the will of the Deity may arise fresh systems at every moment.” The Galaxy (ii, 237) is described as a magnetic axis along which are “all the vortices … in a rectilinear arrangement and series [which] cohere as to their poles. The other solar or stellar vortices afterwards proceed from the axis, and are bent in different directions”. This is severely criticized in Jaki S. , The Milky Way: An elusive road for science (New York, 1972), 168 sq. The millenarian implications of Swedenborgianism are briefly discussed in Thompson E. P. , The making of the English working class (London, 1968), 52–53.

Swedenborg , On the intercourse between the soul and body (London, 1812), vii, 9. In the Principia Swedenborg says the Sun “communicates to the elements a perpetual circulating motion; enables it to impart to it the name of a vortex and a mundane system …” (ii, 251–2). The sources of Swedenborg are obviously Cartesian, but he is eclectic enough to be impressed by Wolff and Newton, whose circle he met in London in the early 1710s, and to “whose researches all other investigations cannot but be inferior” (Miscellaneous observations, 100; Arrhenius S. , Emanuel Swedenborg as a cosmologist (Stockholm, 1908)).

Wright , Second thoughts, ii, 24.

Wright , Second thoughts, ii, 24; see also Epigomena, 28. For Leibniz's ideas see Die philosophischen schriften, iii, 497–502, where he discusses with Hartsoeker the stability produced by pure fire in the world, and the Discourse on metaphysics (1686), sections 7 and 16 (ibid., iv, 427–63); “the most general of God's laws rule the whole sequence of the Universe without exceptions.” This attempt to synthesize the ideas of order is discussed in Loemker L. , Struggle for synthesis: The seventeenth century background of Leibniz's synthesis of order and freedom (Cambridge, Mass., 1972), 247.

Second thoughts, ii, 36. Wright goes on to observe that: “Somthing similar to it must have been known by y^e priests of Minerva in Egypt, since as part of other misteries in sacred characters this mistic sentence was expressed: The sun is born” (Second thoughts, iii, 15). See his citation of Fludd and Josephus , ii, 13–15. Compare Wright's belief in “the great truths to be deduced from ancient tradition and fable” (Wright MSS, vol. iii).

Huygens , Systema saturnium (The Hague, 1659), 8. Wright , Second thoughts, i, 19.

Second thoughts, i, 8. For Halley see Philosophical transactions, xvii (1691–93), 577–8 and his use of the hollow Earth to explain the aurora, in ibid., xxix (1714–16), 428. See Schaffer S. J. , “Halley's Atheism and the End of the World”, Notes and records of the Royal Society, xxxii (1977), 17–40.

Hill John , Urania (London, 1754), s.n. “Via Lactea”. This passage is cited in Dingle H. , “Thomas Wright's Astronomical Heritage”, Annals of science, vi (1950), 404–16, p. 412. Cf. Wright , Second thoughts, Epigenoma, 8.

Whiston , Astronomical principles, 89–90.

On the wasting of the Sun see Benjamin Franklin's experiments, ed. Cohen I. B. (Cambridge, Mass., 1941), 323–7 (letter to Cadwallader Colden, 1752): “The action of fire only separates the particles of matter, it does not annihilate them”. For Newton, see the second edition of the Principia, Bk III, Prop. 42. Compare Kant's Cosmogony, 162: “there will come a time when [the Sun] will be extinguished.” On Priestley and Michell see Priestley J. , History of optics (London, 1772), 387–90; Schofield R. , Mechanism and materialism, 245–6; and McCormmach R. , “John Michell and Henry Cavendish: Weighing the Stars”, British journal for the history of science, iv (1968–69), 126–55.

Wall , in Swinden, Enquiry, 287–9.

Second thoughts, i, 32–33. Wright says of Newton's theory: “as no regular return of any such comet has ever been fully provd or pretended, it follows that the presumptive theory of that great & sagatious mathematic still remains doubtfull” (i, 3). “Those alarming bodys are only and merely accidentle” (i, 15).

On volcanic eruptions, see Second thoughts, i, 9; on sunspots, i, 22; on the asteroid belt: “It is more than probable from the great and unoccupied distance betwixt y^e planet Mars and Jupiter some world may have met with such a final dissolution” (i, 34).

On collisions with comets and the divine purpose, see Wright , Second thoughts, i, 14; Lambert J. H. , Cosmological letters (32): “The preservation of celestial bodies and of their inhabitants is such an aim of the creation which allows no such exception that would include a complete destruction.” (Citations from Cosmological letters will be to the Jaki translation (ref. 36) with the original page numbers in brackets.)

Second thoughts, ii, 22. See also i, 32, and ii, 2, and 23: “The solar body it self in evry system purifies its own planetary region and the comets and eruptive stars perform that salutary office in y^e more remote siderial regions of evry creation.”

Swinden , Enquiry , 249. See Original theory, 30 and 76; Second thoughts, iii, 19.

Second thoughts, iii, 21. See Elster J. , Leibniz et la formation de l'esprit capitaliste (Paris, 1975), 172 sq.

Original theory, 76.

Second thoughts, iii, 31.

Kant interpreted Wright as suggesting the Milky Way was the effect of an observer looking along a line between and parallel to the edges of a thin layer of stars. The review of Wright's book is reprinted in Kant's Cosmogony, 169–80. The publisher of Kant's Allgemeine Naturgeschichte, Petersen J. F. , went bankrupt immediately after the publication of the book and nearly all the copies were impounded.

See Jones K. G. , “The Observational Basis for Kant's Cosmogony: A Critical Analysis”, Journal for the history of astronomy, ii (1971), 29–34.

Adickes , Kant als Naturforscher (ref. 33), ii, 229–35; Munitz M. K. , “Kantian Dialectic and Modern Scientific Cosmology”, Journal of philosophy, xlviii (1951), 327–8; and Philip W. , “Physicotheology in the Age of the Enlightenment”, Studies on Voltaire and the eighteenth century, lvii (1967), 1233–67, all survey the basis of such a hierarchical cosmology.

Newton makes a clear demarcation between the laws of creation and the laws of existence of the cosmos: He wrote to Burnet in 1680/1 that “where natural causes are at hand God uses them as instruments in his works, but I doe not think them alone sufficient for y^e creation” (Correspondence, ii, ed. by Turnbull H. W. (Cambridge, 1960), 332–4). This contrasts with the Augustinian belief of Peter Sterry who wrote in 1683 that “the Divine Act of preserving the World proper for that Season, is entirely the same with the Act of Creation” (The Kingdom of God in the soul of man (London, 1683), 409–10).

Kant , Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels, Part 3, in Werke (Berlin, 1902), i, 353; tr. by Jaki S. L. in Yourgrau and Breck (eds), Cosmology-history-theology (ref. 2), 392.

Kant , Werke, i, 316–18; Kant's Cosmogony, 147–9: “All that is finite, whatever has a beginning and origin, has the mark of its limited nature in itself; it must perish and have an end … eternity will contain in itself all the possible periods required to bring about at last by gradual decay the moment when the world shall perish.”

Kant , Werke, i, 318; Kant's Cosmogony, 149–50.

Kant , Werke, i, 222; Kant's Cosmogony , 18: “My zeal was redoubled when at every step I saw the clouds disperse that appeared to conceal monsters behind their darkness; and when they were scattered I saw the glory of the Supreme Being break forth with the brightest splendour”. See Polonoff , Kant's early thought, 107–8 and 111–12.

Kant , Werke, i, 228; Kant's Cosmogony , 26. There is an important elaboration of this argument in Kant's “Versuch den Begriff der negativen Grössen in die Welt weisheit einzuführen” (1763; Werke, ii, 165–204). See Adickes , Kant als Naturforscher, i, 79 sq. and 131 sq. Kant argues against Leibniz that the quantity mv is conserved, and that the vector sum of mv is constant: But he invokes Newton's argument in Query 31 of the Opticks (1717) that scalar motion may vary. Kant (significantly) ignores the fact that Newton is concerned to show that motion decays, while Kant himself assumes progress and recruitment of motion. See Elster , Leibniz et la formation de l'esprit capitaliste, 227–8.

Kant , Werke, i, 225–6; Kant's Cosmogony, 23–24.

Buroker J. V. , “Kant, the dynamical tradition and the role of matter”, Boston studies, xx (1974), 153–64, p. 157; Buchdahl G. , Metaphysics and the philosophy of science (Oxford, 1969), 580. On his Leibnizianism, see Werke, i, 17 and 61. See Polonoff , Kant's early thought, 106; Dieterich K. , Kant und Newton (Tübingen, 1896), 105 sq.

Kant , Werke, i, 107: “The Cartesian measure is against the purpose of nature, but this does not hinder its being the correct measure of force in mathematics.” On the issue at stake between Kant, Leibniz, and the Cartesians, see the survey by Elkana Y. in British journal for the philosophy of science, xxii (1971), 302–3; the debate on motion and its measure is discussed in École J. , “Cosmologie wolffienne et dynamique leibnizienne”, Études philosophiques, xix (1964), 3–10, and the sources are listed in Heimann P. M. , “‘Geometry and Nature’: Leibniz and Johann Bernoulli's Theory of Motion”, Centaurus, xxi (1977), 1–26, p. 21, n. 3. On Kant's confusions about Leibnizian theory of conserved motion, Elster comments that “ces confusions Kantiennes répondent au même besoin qu'on a signalé plus haut chez Leibniz; reconcilier la constance et le progrès, sans pour autant devoir introduire une dualité ontologique” ( Elster , op. cit. (ref. 60), 228). See Adickes , Kant als Naturforscher, i, 65–82.

Casini P. , “Meccanismo e natura plastica: Due temi della ‘Naturgeschichte’ di Kant”, De homine , xxxi-ii (1969), 75–83: “La negazione delle cause finali e il determinismo delle leggi della natura non escludono infatti l'atto creativo, ma lo fanno recedere all'antefatto dell'universa”. See Werke, i, 230 and 265; Kant's Cosmogony, 28–29, and Buroker , “Kant and the Dynamical Tradition”, 161.

Polonoff , Kant's early thought, 133–7; Adickes , Kant als Naturforscher, ii, 38–69. Whitrow (introduction to his edition of Kant's Cosmogony (New York, 1970), xix–xx) has over-emphasized the Newtonianism of Kant here: The subtle mediation of autonomous order by superintendent Deity is more complex than Whitrow suggests because of this concept of ‘inner’ force of attraction and repulsion.

The use of Wright by Kant is discussed by Hoskin M. A. in his edition of Wright's Original theory, xxvii. The comparisons between Kant and Wright can be found in Whitrow (his edition of Kant's Cosmogony, xxviii), who favours Kant, and Polonoff (Kant's early thought, 119), who correctly notes that Wright avoids any pseudo-Newtonian concepts and is more deliberately circumspect about his speculations. But it must be remembered that Wright is committed to an extraordinary triadic world-view which reaches its culmination in the Pansophia scheme found in the Newcastle manuscripts. Both are speculative and divergent from conventional historiographical categories, but both Wright and Kant represent typical themes of eighteenth-century thought. See Paneth F. , “Die Erkenntnis des Weltbaues durch T. Wright und I. Kant”, Kantstudien, xlvii, 4 (1955–56), 337–49.

Jaki , The Milky Way , 198, n. 51. See Kant , Werke, i, 232 and 329; Kant's Cosmogony, 164–5.

Kant , Werke, i, 312 and 321: “Creation is not the work of a single instant….”

Kant , Werke, i, 377–8. See Polonoff , Kant's early thought, 136; Buroker , “Kant and the Dynamical Tradition”, 159–60; Adickes , Kant als Naturforscher, ii, 40.

From “Die Frage, ob die Erde veralte …” in Werke, i, 212 (1754).

From the “Preliminary Discussion of the Earth's Axial Rotation” (1754), in Werke, i, 186; Kant's Cosmogony , 5. On the problem of aether resistance in Newton see Westfall , Force in Newton's physics (London, 1971), 375ff; Corson D. , The Newtonian aether (Cornell, 1974), 90ff; in Whiston , Astronomical principles, 82 and Gordon George , Remarks upon the Newtonian philosophy (London, 1719), 80–84; and, very interestingly, in the thought of Euler in Forbes E. G. (ed.), Euler-Mayer correspondence (London, 1971), 76ff.

Kant's Cosmogony , 140; Werke, i, 310. Kant says of the solar fire (p. 159): “a flaming fire … is so to speak self-active; and instead of being diminished or exhausted by its communication, on the contrary, it acquires thereby more strength and violence.”

Werke, i, 228 and 310; Kant's Cosmogony, 26. See also Buchdahl , Metaphysics and the philosophy of science, 493–5.

Werke, i, 357; trans. by Jaki S. L. in Cosmology-history-theology (ref. 2), 395–6. Unlike Jaki I have argued for the consistency and importance of the third part of the Allgemeine Naturgeschichte.

Werke, i, 321; Kant's Cosmogony, 154.

Lambert , Cosmological letters (see refs 36 and 57), (100)–(101) and Jaki's Introduction, 32. For Lambert as a Leibnizian, see J. Merleau-Ponty's Introduction to Lambert's Lettres cosmologiques (repr., Paris, 1977), vii–viii.

Ley's introduction to his edition of Kant's Cosmogony (New York, 1968), xiv–xv; Kant , Briefwechsel (Leipzig, 1924), ii, 240–1. See Jaki , Introduction to Cosmological letters, 23–24 and The Milky Way, 199.

Lambert , Cosmological letters, (10). See the summary by Lambert of his own ideas in Photometria (Augsberg, 1760), 505–6.

Lambert , Cosmological letters , (11), (48) and (100)–(101). See also Lettres cosmologiques (ref. 87), 123–4. Lambert had proposed ideas on the Galaxy and the proper motions of the stars well in advance of any contemporary evidence. See Hoskin M. A. , “Lambert's Cosmology”, Journal for the history of astronomy, ix (1978), 134–9, and Adickes , Kant als Naturforscher (ref. 33), ii, 235–8.

Herschel W. , “On the Construction of the Heavens”, Philosophical transactions, lxxv (1785), 213–66. Herschel's idea of the “laboratory of the universe” outlined in this paper comes close to a thoroughly cyclical view of stellar evolution. Planetary nebulae, he suggests, are made up of close-packed stars “no longer fit for their former purpose”, and the final collapse produces a blazing nova which leaves a new, more massive star (ibid., 265–6). In his paper “Remarks on the Construction of the Heavens”, Philosophical transactions, lxxix (1789), 212–55, p. 226, Herschel confirmed that “the uncommon degree of compression that must prevail in a nebula” gives it a “planetary aspect”. See also “On Nebulous Stars, properly so called”, Philosophical transactions, lxxxi (1791), 71–88, pp. 87–88, where the “surmise of the regeneration of stars” is made “more probable”.