“Their analogy with our own system of stars”

— Immanuel Kant

Free translation, as quoted by Edwin Powell Hubble, The Realm of the Nebulae (1936)
An Original Theory or New Hypothesis of the Universe (1750)
Context: I come now to another part of my system, and because it suggests a lofty idea of the plan of creation, it appears to me as the most seductive. The sequence of ideas that led us to it is very simple and natural. They are as follows: let us imagine a system of stars gathered together in a common plane, like those of the Milky Way, but situated so far away from us that even with the telescope we cannot distinguish the stars composing it; let us assume that its distance, compared to that separating us from the stars of the Milky Way, is the same proportion as the Milky Way is to the distance from the earth to the sun; such a stellar world will appear to the observer, who contemplates it at so enormous a distance, only as a little spot feebly illumined and subtending a very small angle; its shape will be circular, if its plane is perpendicular to the line of sight, elliptical, if it is seen obliquely. The faintness of its light, its form, and its appreciable diameter will obviously distinguish such a phenomenon from the isolated stars around it.
We do not need to seek far in the observations of astronomers to meet with such phenomena. They have been seen by various observers, who have wondered at their strange appearance, have speculated about them, and have suggested some times the most amazing explanations, sometimes theories which were more rational, but which had no more foundation than the former. We refer to the nebulæ, or, more precisely, to a particular kind of celestial body which M. de Maupertius describes as follows:
"These are small luminous patches, only slightly more brilliant than the dark background of the sky; they have this in common, that their shapes are more or less open elipses; and their light is far more feeble than that of any other objects to be perceived in the heavens."
... It is much more natural and reasonable to assume that a nebula is not a unique and solitary sun, but a system of numerous suns, which appear crowded, because of their distance, into a space so limited that their light, which would be imperceptible were each of them isolated, suffices, owing to their enormous numbers, to give a pale and uniform luster. Their analogy with our own system of stars; their form, which is precisely what it should be according to our theory; the faintness of their light, which denotes an infinite distance; all are in admirable accord and lead us to consider these elliptical spots as systems of the same order as our own—in a word, to be Milky Ways similar to the one whose constitution we have explained. And if these hypotheses, in which analogy and observation consistently lend mutual support, have the same merit as formal demonstrations, we must consider the existence of such systems as demonstrated...
We see that scattered through space out to infinite distances, there exist similar systems of stars [nebulous stars, nebulæ], and that creation, in the whole extent of its infinite grandeur, is everywhere organized into systems whose members are in relation with one another.... A vast field lies open to discoveries, and observations alone will give the key.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Their analogy with our own system of stars" by Immanuel Kant?

Immanuel Kant 200

German philosopher 1724–1804

Arnold Tustin (1899–1994) British engineer

Arnold Tustin (1957) " The mechanism of economic instability http://books.google.com/books?id=Nou8mkjPMPUC&pg=PA8" in: New Scientist, Oct. 27, 1957. p. 8

“Any system which allows men to choose their own future will end by choosing safety and mediocrity, and in such a Reality the stars are out of reach.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

“You do not understand the dimensions into which your own thoughts drop, for they continue their own existence, and others look up to them and view them like stars. I am telling you that your own thoughts and mental actions appear to inhabitants of other systems like the stars and planets within your own; and those inhabitants do not perceive what lies within and behind the stars in their own heavens.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The Seth Material (1970), p. 312

“Everyone is trying to reach for their own stars, and all of those stars aren’t light-years away. They are as close as our job, our family, our children, our next-door neighbors and our good friends.”

Alan Bean (1932–2018) American astronaut and painter

Statement on significations in his painting "Reaching for the Stars", at the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame, Florida, USA.
After the moon, art is his mission (1997)

“In calling society an ecological system we are not merely using an analogy; society is an example of the general concept of an "ecosystem" that is, an ecological system of which biological systems--forests, fields, swamps--are other examples.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1950s, A Reconstruction of Economics, 1950, p. 6

“The reason which placed the stars, the sense of proportion which we recognize in the planetary system, finds its correspondence in this brain of ours.”

Julia Ward Howe (1819–1910) American abolitionist, social activist, and poet

Beyond the Veil
Context: The reason which placed the stars, the sense of proportion which we recognize in the planetary system, finds its correspondence in this brain of ours. We question every feature of what we see, think, and feel. We try every link of the chain and find it sound if we ourselves are sound. This power of remotest question and assent is not of to-day nor yesterday.
It transcends all bounds of time and space. It weighs the sun, explores the pathway of the stars, and writes, having first carefully read, the history of earth and heaven. It moves in company with the immortals. How much of it is mortal? Only so much as a small strip of earth can cover. These remains are laid away with reverence, having served their time. But what has become of the wonderful power which made them alive? It belongs to that in nature which cannot die.

“Through our mother we are part of the solar system and part through that of the whole universe. In the blazing poetry of the fact we are children of the stars.”

William Golding (1911–1993) British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate

Nobel prize lecture (1983)
Context: Words may, through the devotion, the skill, the passion, and the luck of writers prove to be the most powerful thing in the world. They may move men to speak to each other because some of those words somewhere express not just what the writer is thinking but what a huge segment of the world is thinking. They may allow man to speak to man, the man in the street to speak to his fellow until a ripple becomes a tide running through every nation — of commonsense, of simple healthy caution, a tide that rulers and negotiators cannot ignore so that nation does truly speak unto nation. Then there is hope that we may learn to be temperate, provident, taking no more from nature's treasury than is our due. It may be by books, stories, poetry, lectures we who have the ear of mankind can move man a little nearer the perilous safety of a warless and provident world. It cannot be done by the mechanical constructs of overt propaganda. I cannot do it myself, cannot now create stories which would help to make man aware of what he is doing; but there are others who can, many others. There always have been. We need more humanity, more care, more love. There are those who expect a political system to produce that; and others who expect the love to produce the system. My own faith is that the truth of the future lies between the two and we shall behave humanly and a bit humanely, stumbling along, haphazardly generous and gallant, foolishly and meanly wise until the rape of our planet is seen to be the preposterous folly that it is.
For we are a marvel of creation. I think in particular of one of the most extraordinary women, dead now these five hundred years, Juliana of Norwich. She was caught up in the spirit and shown a thing that might lie in the palm of her hand and in the bigness of a nut. She was told it was the world. She was told of the strange and wonderful and awful things that would happen there. At the last, a voice told her that all things should be well and all manner of things should be well and all things should be very well.
Now we, if not in the spirit, have been caught up to see our earth, our mother, Gaia Mater, set like a jewel in space. We have no excuse now for supposing her riches inexhaustible nor the area we have to live on limitless because unbounded. We are the children of that great blue white jewel. Through our mother we are part of the solar system and part through that of the whole universe. In the blazing poetry of the fact we are children of the stars.

“The elder Herschel, directing his wonderful tube towards the sides of our system, where stars are planted most rarely… was enabled with awe struck mind to see suspended in the vast empyrean astral systems, or, as he called them, firmaments, resembling our own. Like light cloudlets to a certain power of the telescope, they resolved themselves, under a greater power, into stars, though these generally seemed no larger than the finest particles of diamond dust. The general forms of these systems are various; but one at least has been detected as bearing a striking resemblance to the supposed form of our own. The distances are also various… The farthest observed by the astronomer were estimated by him as thirty-five thousand times more remote than Sirius, supposing its distance to be about twenty thousand millions of miles. It would thus appear, that not only does gravitation keep our earth in its place in the solar system, and the solar system in its place in our astral system, but it also may be presumed to have the mightier duty of preserving a local arrangement between that astral system and an immensity of others, through which the imagination is left to wander on and on without limit or stay, save that which is given by its inability to grasp the unbounded.”

Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802) book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation

Source: Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), p. 6-7

“Stars on our door, stars in our eyes, stars exploding in the bits of our brains where the common sense should have been”

Angela Carter book Wise Children

Source: Wise Children

“We may usefully think of the language faculty, the number faculty, and others as 'mental organs,' analogous to the heart or the visual system or the system of motor coordination and planning. There appears to be no clear demarcation line between physical organs, perceptual and motor systems and cognitive faculties in the respects in question.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Source: Quotes 1960s-1980s, 1980s, Rules and Representations (1980), p. 4.

“Their analogy with our own system of stars”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Immanuel Kant 200

Related quotes

Related topics