Filled with Wonder: Kant’s Cosmological Essay, the Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens

Abstract

When the Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens appeared in 1755, Kant, then in his thirty-first year, was on the threshold of a new career. After serving for a period of nine years as a family tutor, he was about to return to the University of Königsberg as a privatdocent. He probably hoped that his bold and ingenious theory about the origin and evolution of the universe would attract attention and smooth his path towards a professorship. Unfortunately, his publisher, Johann Friedrich Peterson, went bankrupt just at the time the book came off the press. The stock was impounded and hardly any copies of Kant’s treatise reached the public.1 It only became widely known more than fifty-one years later when three separate editions appeared in 1797, 1798 and 1808. An interest in Kant’s work may have been sparked by the publication of Laplace’s Exposition du système du monde in 1796. There are significant differences between Laplace’s theory and Kant’s, but admirers of the German philosopher were quick to claim that Laplace had borrowed his ideas from Kant.