rance of the Milky Way, and showed its general
reasonableness. But, at the time in question, the work of the
philosopher of Konigsberg seems to have excited no more notice among
his scientific contemporaries than that of Wright.

Kant's fame as a speculative philosopher has so eclipsed his scientific
work that the latter has but recently been appraised at its true value.
He was the originator of views which, though defective in detail,
embodied a remarkable number of the results of recent research on the
structure and form of the universe, and the changes taking place in it.
The most curious illustration of the way in which he arrived at a
correct conclusion by defective reasoning is found in his anticipation
of the modern theory of a constant retardation of the velocity with
which the earth revolves on its axis. He conceived that this effect
must result from the force exerted by the tidal wave, as moving towards
the west it strikes the eastern coasts of Asia and America. An opposite
conclusion was reached by Laplace, who showed that the effect of this
force was neutralized by forces producing the wave and acting in the
opposite direction. And yet, nearly a century later, it was shown that
while Laplace was quite correct as regards the general principles
involved, the friction of the moving water must prevent the complete
neutralization of the two opposing forces, and leave a small residual
force acting towards the west and retarding the rotation. Kant's
conclusion was established, but by an action different from that which
he supposed.

The theory of Wright and Kant, which was still further developed by
Herschel, was that our stellar system has somewhat the form of a
flattened cylinder, or perhaps that which the earth would assume if, in
consequence of more rapid rotation, the bulging out at its equator and
the flattening at its poles were carried to an extreme limit. This form
has been correctly though satirically compared to that of a grindstone.
It rests to a certain extent, but not entirely, on the idea that the
stars are scattered through space with equal thickness in every
direction, and that the appearance of the Milky Way is due to the fact
that we, situated in the centre of this flattened system, see more
stars in the direction of the circumference of the system than in that
of its poles. The argument on which the view in question rests may be
made clear in the following way.

Let us chose for our observati