Show The Worlds Great Dreamer 2 t Kauts Kants Vision Vion of the te Starry Star Heavens By Dy B REV itts nV THOMAS B Il GREGORY From the once startling starting theory theor known as the nebula hypothesis the hypo hypothetical c tle element has been ben largely largel elim eliminated elm The number of people who now no entertain doubt of ot the theory of the nebulous origin of the solar system and of o all al the other oLler suns and worlds of space is probably very er small We Wo may na be sure beyond what the lawyers would can call cl a reasonable doubt that all al the tle material now noW constituting the te various arious bodies of our solar system once extended in the shape hape of 0 a highly highl rarefied stardust beyond the confines confine of our most distant planet and that this vast st field feld of attenuated matter mater losing its is heat het by b radiation contracted and in ln Its is rotation threw t off by b reason of the centrifugal force the rings ring which eventually became the planets planet About Abut eleven thousand nebulae are arenow arenow now nosy recognized a few tew being visible to the naked eye and it bas has been demon demonstrated thanks to the spectroscope spectroscope that many man of these nebulae are still sUl ac actually actually gaseous thus affording unquestionable unquestionable evidence of ot the way In which the worlds were made made madel l Te nebulae theory theor is generally at attributed atI t to Laplace and the illustrious Frenchman Frenchman is clearly cearly entitled to the su en supreme supreme I preme promO place that he holds In the hier iler hierarchy hl r archy arch of mind But It I was s the to little old man of Konigsberg and ald not Laplace through whose brain first frt flashed the great Seat conception of the tho nebulae hypo hypothesis hypothesis thesis It I was In 1796 that Laplace published The Tho System of the World in a note In which he launched his daring concep conception conception I tion ton regarding the genesis geneis of the solar system tem I Immanuel Kants Theory Theor of the Heavens was vas a given to the world ord In i years ears before the publication publication II cation of the great get Frenchmans work wark In his Theory heon of the Heavens Kent assumed as his provisional starting point a time when all aU the matter mater now I condensed in sun planets and comets comet J was R dissipated in a gaseous state over I 1 the Ule whole space in which these bodies bode revolve To clearly cearly understand the te sort of I brain brin that Kant must have possessed It f Is only necessary to remember that tat his Ills vast conception was purely deduc j tle that Is Js to say was vas a conception and nothing nothing more mora morea a sublime Idea gen generated generated in his Imperial mind a dream If Jt you will i of his almost more than tha mortal fancy It I Is as a philosopher as a robust 4 thinker as a sort of logical Hercules r that Kant Is best known to fame but great geat as his achievements are in the te way of ot metaphysics would it not seem j that his proudest victories in that di direction direct direction on are but as a dust In the te balance compared with wih the mighty mental leap by which he rose to his sublime con conception conception of the stardust and and the to worlds words t were were born brn of it U |