We would wish to discover the Plan of the Universe, and the means employed by the Eternal Architect in the execution of his magnificent design. We wi… - Johann Heinrich Lambert

But, are the faculties of our nature equal to this? and what are the principles which ought to guide us in these researches?

If in two ellipses having a common major axis we take two such arcs that their chords are equal, and that also the sums of the radii vectores, drawn respectively from the foci to the extremities of these arcs, are equal to each other, then the sectors formed in each ellipse by the arc and the two radii vectores are to each other as the square roots of the parameters of the ellipses.

In order to supply the defects of experience, we will have recourse to the probable conjectures of analogy, conclusions which we will bequeath to our posterity to be ascertained by new observations, which, if we augur rightly, will serve to establish our theory and to carry it gradually nearer to absolute certainty.