SCIENCE AND RELIGION--KANT, LAMBERT, LAPLACE, SIR WILLIAM HERSCHEL
Hutton had advanced the study of geology by concentrating attention on
the observable phenomena of the earth's crust, and turning away from
speculations about the origin of the world and the relation of this
sphere to other units of the cosmos. In the same century, however, other
scientists and philosophers were attracted by these very problems which
seemed not to promise immediate or demonstrative solution, and through
their studies they arrived at conclusions which profoundly affected the
science, the ethics, and the religion of the civilized world.
Whether religion be defined as a complex feeling of elation and
humility--a sacred fear--akin to the æsthetic sense of the sublime; or,
as an intellectual recognition of some high powers which govern us
below--of some author of all things, of some force social or cosmic
which tends to righteousness; or, as the outcrop of the moral life
touched with light and radiant with enthusiasm; or, as partaking of the
nature of all these: it cannot be denied that the eighteenth century
contributed to its clarification and formulation, especially through the
efforts of the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Yet it is
not difficult to show that the philosophy of Kant and of those
associated with him was greatly influenced by the science of the time,
and that, in fact, in his early life he was a scientist rather than a
philosopher in the stricter sense. His _General Natural History and
Theory of the Heavens_, written at the age of thirty-one, enables us to
follow his transition from science to philosophy, and, more especially,
to trace the influence of his theory of the origin of the heavenly
bodies on his religious conceptions.
For part of this theory Kant was indebted to Thomas Wright of Durham
(1711-1786). Wright was the son of a carpenter, became apprenticed to a
watchmaker, went to sea, later became an engraver, a maker of
mathematical instruments, rose to affluence, wrote a book on navigation,
and was offered a professorship of navigation in the Imperial Academy of
St. Petersburg. It was in 1750 that he published, in the form of nine
letters, the work that stimulated the mind of Kant, _An Original Theory
or New Hypothesis of the Universe_. The author thought that the
revelation of the structure of the heavens naturally tended to propagate
the principles of virtue and vindicate the laws of Providence. He
regarded the universe as an infinity of worlds acted upon by an eternal
Agent, and full of beings, tending through their various states to a
final perfection. Who, conscious of this system, can avoid being filled
with a kind of enthusiastic ambition to contribute his atom toward the
due admiration of its great and Divine Author?
Wright discussed the nature of mathematical certainty and the various
degrees of moral probability proper for conjecture (thus pointing to a
distinction that ultimately became basal in the philosophy of Kant).
When he claimed that the sun is a vast body of blazing matter, and that
the most distant star is also a sun surrounded by a system of planets,
he knew that he was reasoning by analogy and not enunciating what is
immediately demonstrable. Yet this multitude of worlds opens out to us
an immense field of probation and an endless scene of hope to ground our
expectation of an ever future happiness upon, suitable to the native
dignity of the awful Mind which made and comprehended it.
The most striking part of Wright's _Original Theory_ relates to the
construction of the Milky Way, which he thought analogous in form to the
rings of Saturn. From the center the arrangement of the systems and the
harmony of the movements could be discerned, but our solar system
occupies a section of the belt, and what we see of the creation gives
but a confused picture, unless by an effort of imagination we attain the
right point of view. The various cloudy stars or light appearances are
nothing but a dense accumulation of stars. What less than infinity can
circumscribe them, less than eternity comprehend them, or less than
Omnipotence produce or support them? He passes on to a discussion of
time and space with regard to the known objects of immensity and
duration, and in the ninth letter says that, granting the creation to be
circular or orbicular, we can suppose in the center of the whole an
intelligent principle, the to-all-extending eye of Providence, or, if
the creation is real, and not merely ideal, a sphere of some sort.
Around this the suns keep their orbits harmoniously, all apparent
irregularities arising from our eccentric view. Moreover, space is
sufficient for many such systems.
Kant resembled his predecessor in his recognition of the bearing on
moral and religious conceptions of the study of the heavens and also in
his treatment of many astronomical details, sometimes merely adopting,
more frequently developing or modifying, the teachings of Wright. He
held that the stars constitute a system just as much as do the planets
of our solar system, and that other solar systems and other Milky Ways
may have been produced in the boundless fields of space. Indeed, he is
inclined to identify with the latter systems the small luminous
elliptical areas in the heavens reported by Maupertuis in 1742. Kant
also accepted Wright's conjecture of a central sun or globe and even
made selection of one of the stars to serve in that office, and taught
that the stars consist like our sun of a fiery mass. One cannot
contemplate the world-structure without recognizing the excellent
orderliness of its arrangement, and perceiving the sure indications of
the hand of God in the completeness of its relations. Reason, he says in
the _Allgemeine Naturgeschichte_, refuses to believe it the work of
chance. It must have been planned by supreme wisdom and carried into
effect by Omnipotence.
Kant was especially stimulated by the analogy between the Milky Way and
the rings of Saturn. He did not agree with Wright that they, or the
cloudy areas, would prove to be stars or small satellites, but rather
that both consisted of vapor particles. Giving full scope to his
imagination, he asks if the earth as well as Saturn may not have been
surrounded by a ring. Might not this ring explain the supercelestial
waters that gave such cause for ingenuity to the medieval writers? Not
only so, but, had such a vaporous ring broken and been precipitated to
the earth, it would have caused a prolonged Deluge, and the subsequent
rainbow in the heavens might very well have been interpreted as an
allusion to the vanished ring, and as a promise. This, however, is not
Kant's characteristic manner in supporting moral and religious truth.
To account for the origin of the solar system, the German philosopher
assumes that at the beginning of all things the material of which the
sun, planets, satellites, and comets consist, was uncompounded, in its
primary elements, and filled the whole space in which the bodies formed
out of it now revolve. This state of nature seemed to be the very
simplest that could follow upon nothing. In a space filled in this way a
state of rest could not last for more than a moment. The elements of a
denser kind would, according to the law of gravitation, attract matter
of less specific gravity. Repulsion, as well as attraction, plays a part
among the particles of matter disseminated in space. Through it the
direct fall of particles may be diverted into a circular movement about
the center toward which they are gravitating.
Of course, in our system the center of attraction is the nucleus of the
sun. The mass of this body increases rapidly, as also its power of
attraction. Of the particles gravitating to it the heavier become heaped
up in the center. In falling from different heights toward this common
focus the particles cannot have such perfect equality of resistance that
no lateral movements should be set up. A general circulatory motion is
in fact established ultimately in one direction about the central mass,
which receiving new particles from the encircling current rotates in
harmony with it.
Mutual interference in the particles outside the mass of the sun
prevents all accumulation except in one plane and that takes the form of
a thin disk continuous with the sun's equator. In this circulating
vaporous disk about the sun differences of density give rise to zones
not unlike the rings of Saturn. These zones ultimately contract to form
planets, and as the planets are thrown off from the central solar mass
till an equilibrium is established between the centripetal and
centrifugal forces, so the satellites in turn are formed from the
planets. The comets are to be regarded as parts of the system, akin to
the planets, but more remote from the control of the centripetal force
of the sun. It is thus that Kant conceived the nebular hypothesis,
accounting (through the formation of the heavenly bodies from a cloudy
vapor similar to that still observable through the telescope) for the
revolution of the planets in one direction about the sun; the rotation
of sun and planets; the revolution and rotation of satellites; the
comparative densities of the heavenly bodies; the materials in the tails
of comets; the rings of Saturn, and other celestial phenomena. Newton,
finding no matter between the planets to maintain the community of their
movements, asserted that the immediate hand of God had instituted the
arrangement without the intervention of the forces of Nature. His
disciple Kant now undertook to explain an additional number of
phenomena on mechanical principles. Granted the existence of matter, he
felt capable of tracing the cosmic evolution, but at the same time he
maintained and strengthened his religious position, and did not assume
(like Democritus and Epicurus) eternal motion without a Creator or the
coming together of atoms by accident or haphazard.
It might be objected, he says, that Nature is sufficient unto itself;
but universal laws of the action of matter serve the plan of the Supreme
Wisdom. There is convincing proof of the existence of God in the very
fact that Nature, even in chaos, cannot proceed otherwise than regularly
and according to law. Even in the essential properties of the elements
that constituted the chaos, there could be traced the mark of that
perfection which they have derived from their origin, their essential
character being a consequence of the eternal idea of the Divine
Intelligence. Matter, which appears to be merely passive and wanting in
form and arrangement, has in its simplest state a tendency to fashion
itself by a natural development into a more perfect constitution. Matter
must be considered as created by God in accordance with law and as ever
obedient to law, not as an independent or hostile force needing
occasional correction. To suppose the material world not under law would
be to believe in a blind fate rather than in Providence. It is Nature's
harmony and order revealed to our understanding that give us a clue to
its creation by an understanding of the highest order.
In a work written eight years later Kant sought to furnish people of
ordinary intelligence with a proof of the existence of God. It might
seem irrelevant in such a production to give an exposition of physical
phenomena, but, intent on his method of mounting to a knowledge of God
by means of natural science, he here repeats in summarized form his
theory of the origin of the heavenly bodies. Moreover, the influence of
his astronomical studies persisted in his maturest philosophy, as can be
seen in the well-known passage at the conclusion of his ethical work,
the _Critique of the Practical Reason_ (1788): "There are two things
that fill my spirit with ever new and increasing awe and reverence--the
more frequently and the more intently I contemplate them--the
star-strewn sky above me and the moral law within." His religious and
ethical conceptions were closely associated with--indeed, dependent
upon--an orderly and infinite physical universe.
In the mathematician, astronomer, physicist, and philosopher, J. H.
Lambert (1728-1777), Kant found a genius akin to his own, and through
him hoped for a reformation of philosophy on the basis of the study of
science. Lambert like his contemporary was a disciple of Newton, and in
1761 he published a book in the form of letters expressing views in
reference to the Milky Way, fixed stars, central sun, very similar to
those published by Kant in 1755. Lambert had heard of Wright's work, so
similar to his own, a year after the latter was written.
Comets, now robbed of many of the terrors with which ancient
superstition endowed them, might, he says, seem to threaten catastrophe,
by colliding with the planets or by carrying off a satellite. But the
same hand which has cast the celestial spheres in space, has traced
their course in the heavens, and does not allow them to wander at
random to disturb and destroy each other. Lambert imagines that all
these bodies have exactly the volume, weight, position, direction, and
speed necessary for the avoidance of collisions. If we confess a Supreme
Ruler who brought order from chaos, and gave form to the universe; it
follows that this universe is a perfect work, the impress, picture,
reflex of its Creator's perfection. Nothing is left to blind chance.
Means are fitted to ends. There is order throughout, and in this order
the dust beneath our feet, the stars above our heads, atoms and worlds,
are alike comprehended.
Laplace in his statement of the nebular hypothesis made no mention of
Kant. He sets forth, in the _Exposition of the Solar System_, the
astronomical data that the theory is designed to explain: the movements
of the planets in the same direction and almost in the same plane; the
movements of the satellites in the same direction as those of the
planets; the rotation of these different bodies and of the sun in the
same direction as their projection, and in planes little different; the
small eccentricity of the orbits of planets and satellites; the great
eccentricity of the orbits of comets. How on the ground of these data
are we to arrive at the cause of the earliest movements of the planetary
system?
A fluid of immense extent must be assumed, embracing all these bodies.
It must have circulated about the sun like an atmosphere and, in virtue
of the excessive heat which was engendered, it may be assumed that this
atmosphere originally extended beyond the orbits of all the planets, and
was contracted by stages to its present form. In its primitive state
the sun resembled the nebulæ, which are to be observed through the
telescope, with fiery centers and cloudy periphery. One can imagine a
more and more diffuse state of the nebulous matter.
Planets were formed, in the plane of the equator and at the successive
limits of the nebulous atmosphere, by the condensation of the different
zones which it abandoned as it cooled and contracted. The force of
gravity and the centrifugal force sufficed to maintain in its orbit each
successive planet. From the cooling and contracting masses that were to
constitute the planets smaller zones and rings were formed. In the case
of Saturn there was such regularity in the rings that the annular form
was maintained; as a rule from the zones abandoned by the planet-mass
satellites resulted. Differences of temperature and density of the parts
of the original mass account for the eccentricity of orbits, and
deviations from the plane of the equator.
In his _Celestial Mechanics_ (1825) Laplace states that, according to
Herschel's observations, Saturn's rotation is slightly quicker than that
of its rings. This seemed a confirmation of the hypothesis of the
_Exposition du Système du Monde_.
When Laplace presented the first edition of this earlier work to
Napoleon, the First Consul said: "Newton has spoken of God in his book.
I have already gone through yours, and I have not found that name in it
a single time." To this Laplace is said to have replied: "First Citizen
Consul, I have not had need of that hypothesis." The astronomer did not,
however, profess atheism; like Kant he felt competent to explain on
mechanical principles the development of the solar system from the point
at which he undertook it. In his later years he desired that the
misleading anecdote should be suppressed. So far was he from
self-sufficiency and dogmatism that his last utterance proclaimed the
limitations of even the greatest intellects: "What we know is little
enough, what we don't know is immense" (_Ce que nous connaissons est peu
de chose, ce que nous ignorons est immense_).
Sir William Herschel's observations, extended over many years, confirmed
both the nebular hypothesis and the theory of the systematic arrangement
of the stars. He made use of telescopes 20 and 40 feet in focal length,
and of 18.7 and 48 inches aperture, and was thereby enabled, as Humboldt
said, to sink a plummet amid the fixed stars, or, in his own phrase, to
gauge the heavens. _The Construction of the Heavens_ was always the
ultimate object of his observations. In a contribution on this subject
submitted to the Royal Society in 1787 he announced the discovery of 466
new nebulæ and clusters of stars. The sidereal heavens are not to be
regarded as the concave surface of a sphere, from the center of which
the observer might be supposed to look, but rather as resembling a rich
extent of ground or chains of mountains in which the geologist discovers
many strata consisting of various materials. The Milky Way is one
stratum and in it our sun is placed, though perhaps not in the very
center of its thickness.
By 1811 he had greatly increased his observations of the nebulæ and
could arrange them in series differing in extent, condensation,
brightness, general form, possession of nuclei, situation, and in
resemblance to comets and to stars. They ranged from a faint trace of
extensive diffuse nebulosity to a nebulous star with a mere vestige of
cloudiness. Herschel was able to make the series so complete that the
difference between the members was no more than could be found in a
series of pictures of the human figure taken from the birth of a child
till he comes to be a man in his prime. The difference between the
diffuse nebulous matter and the star is so striking that the idea of
conversion from one to the other would hardly occur to any one without
evidence of the intermediate steps. It is highly probable that each
successive state is the result of the action of gravity.
In his last statement, 1818, he admitted that to his telescopes the
Milky Way had proved fathomless, but on "either side of this assemblage
of stars, presumably in ceaseless motion round their common center of
gravity, Herschel discovered a canopy of discrete nebulous masses, such
as those from the condensation of which he supposed the whole stellar
universe to be formed."
In the theory of the evolution of the heavenly bodies, as set forth by
Kant, Laplace, and Herschel, it was assumed that the elements that
composed the earth are also to be found elsewhere throughout the solar
system and the universe. The validity of this assumption was finally
established by spectrum analysis. But this vindication was in part
anticipated, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, by the analysis
of meteorites. In these were found large quantities of iron,
considerable percentages of nickel, as well as cobalt, copper, silicon,
phosphorus, carbon, magnesium, zinc, and manganese.
REFERENCES
G. F. Becker, Kant as a Natural Philosopher, _American Journal of
Science_, vol. V (1898), pp. 97-112.
W. W. Bryant, _A History of Astronomy_.
Agnes M. Clerke, _History of Astronomy during the Nineteenth Century_.
Agnes M. Clerke, _The Herschels and Modern Astronomy_.
Sir William Herschel, Papers on the Construction of the Heavens
(_Philosophical Transactions_, 1784, 1811, etc.).
A. R. Hinks, _Astronomy_ (Home University Library).
E. W. Maunders, _The Science of the Stars_ (The People's Books).