5.
With Newton's system assuring the classical unity
of explanation,
there were also minds for whom the
spatial unity of the architecture of the
universe re-
mained such a desideratum that
they went ahead and
worked at reconstructing the centralized universe
of
the ancients.
The desire among these minds for a regular arrange-
ment of the stars on the celestial vault was at the base
of
their reconstruction. If from the earth the skies
appear so irregular (a
fact which Descartes found
shocking), it was because our vortex could not
be the
center of the world; but there should exist a
center
from which the celestial vault would appear in a per-
fect harmony. The first astronomical observations on
the displacement of the fixed stars (by E. Halley in
1718) favored the idea
of the rotation of the whole
of our galaxy (perhaps around Sirius, which
would be
its great sun) and of the entire universe around a central
star. Thus appeared the system of Thomas Wright (An
Original Theory of the Universe, 1750), which despite
its mediocre
mathematical value impressed important
thinkers like Kant. In Wright's
system there reappeared
the old cult of the Circle and Sphere and the
vast
rotation of the whole starry vault, which had been at
a
standstill since Copernicus. But the original creation
of this visionary
cosmology was the fabulous “central
body,” the only
stationary body, balancing by itself the
Universe; the “central
body” was not a sun of fire, but
a habitable globe around which
the stars appeared
juxtaposed, forming a continuous vault of fire. It
was
the “First Mover,” seat of the forces which move
the
universe, God's throne, and the “Abode of Recom-
pense.”
The central body and the great vortex appeared
again among serious
astronomers at the end of the
eighteenth century; and among imaginative
cosmolo-
gists like J. A. Lambert
(Kosmologische Briefe, 1761)
and J. E.
Bode (Anleitung zur Kenntniss des gestirnten
Himmels, 1768), whose influence on the Sturm
und
Drang dreamers was great.
Nevertheless these minds shared the then dominant
yearning for infinite
diversity. Wright established it in
both space and time: he envisaged an
unlimited plenum
of creations, each with its central body, and
conceived
the blessedness of the elect to consist in the contem-
plation of the wonderful variety of
the world. Bode
insisted not only on the multiplicity of forms but
also
on their perpetually changing variety in which an
inexhaustible
creative power was displayed.
