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pointed out since tbe views displaced by him were not thought worthy
of mention. Swedenborg bas received from Descartes the doctrine of
vortices of ether around the fixed stars. But in this doctrine be has
made two modifications. He bas assumed that tbe vortical motion
arose gradually and did not exist from the beginning. This view, also
held by Kant, may be thought to have a philosophical advantage over
that of Descartes, but it is opposed to tbe fundamental principles of
mechanics and is therefore untenable from the standpoint of natural
science, wherefore it was also abandoned by Laplace.
Tbe other modification of the views of Descartes bas won much
more approval. Not witbout foundation did it seem to Swedenborg
simpler to assume that tbe planets and moons of the solar system
proceeded from tbe solar mass instead of having wandered in from
portions of space lying outside of tbe solar system. This thought has
been taken up by Buffon, Kant and Laplace and is the fundamental
thought in the admired hypotliesis of Laplace. As regards details
Swe-denborg diverges essentially from his successors. Kant and Laplace
assumed that the solar matter was originally spread out over a very
wide space, which extended beyond the outmost planets. There,
accor-ding to Kant, were formed planets by the aggregation of masses of
matter; according to Laplace, by separation out of the rotating mass
as the result of centrifugal force. Swedenborg on the other hånd had
assumed that the solar vortex never had so great an extension. The
planets had been formed by a centrifugal force depending upon a
con-tinually increasing vortical motion of the solar mass, as a result of
which its outmost parts were separated and cast out, having drawn
themselves together into globes corresponding to the present planets and
moons of the planetar}^ system. Afterwards these heavenly bodies had
been gradually borne away from the sun to the positions they now
occupy. There they are drawn along by the solar vortex like ships by
flowing water. A similar view concerning the departure of the planets
from the sun was also later expressed by Buffon, but he differs from
Swedenborg in this, that Buffon assumed a concussion caused by a
comet which by breaking in from outside and striking the sun gave
occasion to the casting out of shattered portions of it. In recent
times, however, the famous English astronomer G. H. Darwin has
expressed a view concerning the removal of the planets from the sun by
means of the influence of the tides. This influence acts as a brake upon
the central body, by means of which the planet circling around it is lif-
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