Kant: Briefwechsel, Brief 466, An Iohann Friedrich Gensichen.

		Kant: Briefwechsel, Brief 466, An Iohann Friedrich Gensichen.


		An Iohann Friedrich Gensichen.

		19. April 1791.

		(Übersetzung.)

		Magister Gensichen Esq.


		Sir, you would have given in your dissertation, to every one what is owing
		to him with regard to the history of the astronomical knowledges, if at theend
		of your work, you would please to discriminate of that, what belongs to later
		ones and to remark that, what, though little and containing more happy conjetures
		than arguments, is however mine.



		Ist That the representation of the milky way, as a system of moving suns
		resembling our planetary system, is given by me, six years before the similar
		one, published by Lambert in his cosmological letters.




		2nd That the representation of the foggy stars, as a like number remote
		milky ways is not, as Erxleben says in his natural philosophy 1772 p. 540,
		and as is still extant in the new edition, augmented by the counsellor Lichtenberg
		as an idea, ventured by Lambert, who rather supposed them (at least one of
		them) to be obscure bodies, illuminated by neighboring suns.



		3rd That I have represented a long time ago, very nearly to that, what
		recent observations have taught, the production and conservation of the ring of
		Saturn, according to mere laws of the centripetal force, which appears now to
		be so well confirmed, viz: a mist, moving round its centre, (which in the same
		time is that of Saturn), which is composed of particles, not steady, but independently
		revolving and performing their orbits in times, different according to
		their distance from the centre; whereby at once the time of Saturn's revolution
		on its axis, which I inferred from it, and its flatness, seem to be ratified.



		4th That this agreement of the theory of the production of yon ring from
		a vaporous matter, moving after the laws of the centripetal force, is somewhat
		favorable to the theory of the production of the great globes themselves according
		to the same laws, except that their property of rotation is originally produced
		by the fall of this dispersed substance by the general gravity. It does
		so chiefly, if the later opinion, added as supplement to the theory of the
		heavens, which is approved by the important applause of Mr. Lichtenberg, is
		connected with it, that: yon prime matter, vaporously dispersed through the
		universe, which contained all stuffs of an innumerable variety in an elastic
		state, forming the globes, effected it only in this manner, that the matters of
		any chemical affinity, if in their course, they met together according to the
		laws of gravitation, destroyed mutually their elasticity, produced by its bodies
		and in them that heat, joined in the larger globes, (the suns) externally with
		the illuminated property, in the smaller ones (the planets) with the interior heat.
		In the same time I beg you to entitle the appendix about in the following manner.



		Appendix.
		Occasion of it.
		The apprehension, that several inquiries, both public and private, for
		Kant's natural history and theory of the heavens, Michael 1755, might occasion
		any unbidden new edition of it, moved its author to propose to me, to make
		an extract of it, containing the most essential, however with regard to the great
		progress of astronomy since its publication; with I lay down here, after his
		review and with his approbation.



		Here follows the extract.
		Besides I beseech you, not to be offended at the trouble, I occasion you;
		and to favor me with your company, if possible, tomorrow at the dinner.


				I. Kant
				Apr. 19. 1791.




		[ abgedruckt in : AA XI, Seite 252 ] [ Brief 465 ] [ Brief 467 ] [ Gesamtverzeichnis des Briefwechsels ]