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I
PHYSICAL ASTRONOMY.
NO part of my doctrine could I have less hoped to see
corroborated by empirical science than that, in which
the fundamental truth, that Kant s thing in itself (Ding an
sich) is the Will, is applied by me even to inorganic Nature,
and in which I show the active principle in all fundamental
forces of Nature to be absolutely identical with what is
known to us within ourselves as the Will. It has therefore
been particularly gratifying to me to have found that an
eminent empiricist, yielding to the force of truth, had
gone so far as to express this paradox in the exposition of
his scientific doctrine. I allude to Sir John Herschel and
"
to his Treatise on Astronomy," the first edition of which
appeared in 1833, and a second enlarged one in 1849,
"
under the title Outlines of Astronomy." Herschel, who,
as an astronomer, was acquainted with gravity, not only in
the one-sided and really coarse part which it acts on earth,
but also in the nobler one performed by it in universal
Space, where the celestial bodies play with each other,
betray mutual inclination, exchange as it were amorous
glances, yet never allow themselves to come into rude con
tact, and thus continue dancing their dignified minuet to
the music of the spheres, while they keep at a respectful
distance from one another when he comes to the state
ment of the law of gravitation in the seventh chapter, 1
expresses
1
1833.
himself as follows :
"
Herschel, Treatise on Astronomy," chap. 7,
X
371 of the 1st edition,