Universal Natural History and Theory of Heaven

Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, subtitled or an Attempt to Account for the Constitutional and Mechanical Origin of the Universe upon Newtonian Principles, is a work written and published anonymously by Immanuel Kant in 1755. According to Kant, the Solar System is merely a smaller version of the fixed star systems, such as the Milky Way and other galaxies. The cosmogony that Kant proposes is closer to today's accepted ideas than that of some of his contemporary thinkers, such as Pierre-Simon Laplace. Moreover, Kant's thought in this volume is strongly influenced by the atomist theory, in addition to the ideas of Lucretius. Background Kant had read a 1751 review of Thomas Wright's An original theory or new hypothesis of the Universe (1750), and he credited this with inspiring him in writing the Universal Natural History. Kant answered to the call of the Berlin Academy Prize in 1754 with the argument that the Moon's gravity would eventually cause its tidal locking to coincide with the Earth's rotation. The next year, he expanded this reasoning to the formation and evolution of the Solar System in the Universal Natural History.