We will found our hypothesis in the general laws of motion, whose effects are every where the same, and whose influence extends to the utmost limits … - 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.

This is all to which weak and limited beings can pretend, beings who occupy a point, and last but a moment in this mighty edifice built for eternity.