ormer distinguishes between _ratio essendi_ and _ratio cognoscendi_,
rejects the ontological argument, and defends determinism against Crusius
on Leibnitzian grounds. In the _Physical Monadology_ Kant gives his
adherence to dynamism (matter the product of attraction and repulsion), and
makes the monads or elements of body fill space without prejudice to
their simplicity. A series of treatises is devoted to subjects in natural
science: The Effect of the Tides in retarding the Earth's Rotation; The
Obsolescence of the Earth; Fire (Inaugural Dissertation), Earthquakes, and
the Theory of the Winds. The most important of these, the _General Natural
History and Theory of the Heavens_, 1755, which for a long time remained
unnoticed, and which was dedicated to Frederick II., developed the
hypothesis (carried out forty years later by Laplace in ignorance of Kant's
work) of the mechanical origin of the universe and of the motion of the
planets. It presupposes merely the two forces of matter, attraction and
repulsion, and its primitive chaotic condition, a world-mist with elements
of different density. It is noticeable that Kant acknowledges the failure
of the mechanical theory at two points: it is brought to a halt at the
origin of the organic world and at the origin of matter. The mechanical
cosmogony is far from denying creation; on the contrary, the proof that
this well-ordered and purposive world necessarily arose from the regular
action of material forces under law and without divine intervention, can
only serve to support our assumption of a Supreme Intelligence as the
author of matter and its laws; the belief is necessary, just because
nature, even in its chaotic condition, can act only in an orderly and
regular way.

The empirical phase of Kant's development is represented by the writings
of the 60's. _The False Subtlety of the Four Syllogistic Figures_, 1762,
asserts that the first figure is the only natural one, and that the others
are superfluous and need reduction to the first. In the _Only Possible
Foundation for a Demonstration of the Existence of God_, 1763, which, in
the seventh Reflection of the Second Division, recapitulates the cosmogony
advanced in the _Natural History of the Heavens_, the discussions
concerning being ("existence" is absolute position, not a predicate which
increases the sum of the qualities but is posited in a merely relative
way), and the conclusion, prophetical of his later point of view, "It