GENERAL COSMOLOGY

PROLEGOMENA.

§. 1.
Definition of Cosmology.

General cosmology is the science of the world or the universe in general, insofar, namely, as it is an entity, and indeed a composite and modifiable one. We provided this definition of general cosmology in the preliminary discourse prefixed to our Logic (§. 78). We also noted in that same place that this name is unknown to the common people, although certain principles pertaining to it are not ignored. For this reason, I am accustomed to call it transcendental, because nothing is demonstrated here concerning the world except those things which belong to it as a composite and modifiable entity, so that it relates to Physics in the same way that Ontology, or first philosophy, relates to philosophy as a whole. I also provided the reason there for why I have collected these general and abstract notions concerning the world into a system and founded a new discipline hitherto unknown, namely...

(Wolff's Cosmology.)