The first comprehensive idea of cosmological evolution was put forth by the famous critical philosopher Immanuel Kant, in 1755, in the great work of his earlier years, _General Natural History of the Heavens, or an Attempt to Conceive and to Explain the Origin of the Universe mechanically, according to the Newtonian Laws_. This remarkable work appeared anonymously, and was dedicated to Frederick the Great, who, however, never saw it. It was little noticed, and was soon entirely forgotten, until it was exhumed ninety years afterwards by Alexander von Humboldt. Note particularly that on the title-page stress is laid on the _mechanical_ origin of the world and its explanation on Newtonian principles; in this way the strictly Monistic character of the whole cosmogony and the absolutely universal rule of natural law are clearly expressed. It is true that Kant speaks much in it of God and his wisdom and omnipotence; but this is limited to the affirmation that God created once for all the unchangeable laws of nature, and was henceforward bound by them and only able to work through them. The Dualism which became so pronounced subsequently in the philosopher of Koenigsberg counts for very little here. The idea of a natural development of the world occurs in a clearer and more consistent form, and is provided with a firm mathematical basis, forty years afterwards, in the remarkable _Mécanique Céleste_ of Pierre Laplace. His popular _Exposition du Système du Monde_ (1796) destroyed at its roots the legend of creation that had hitherto prevailed, or the Mosaic narrative in the Bible. Laplace, who had become Minister of the Interior, Count, and Chancellor of the Senate, under Napoleon, was merely honourable and consistent when he replied to the emperor's question, "What room there was for God in his system?": "Sire, I had no need for that unfounded hypothesis." What strange ministers there are sometimes![2] The shrewdness of the Church soon recognised that the personal Creator was dethroned, and the creation-myth destroyed, by this Monistic and now generally received theory of cosmic development. Nevertheless it maintained towards it the attitude which it had taken up 250 years earlier in regard to the closely related and irrefutable system of Copernicus. It endeavoured to conceal the truth as long as possible, or to oppose it with Jesuitical methods, and finally it yielded. If the Churches now silently admit the Copernican system and the cosmogony of Laplace and have ceased to oppose them, we must attribute the fact, partly to a feeling of their spiritual impotence, partly to an astute calculation that the ignorant masses do not reflect on these great problems.