[Note to ‘System of the Heavens’]

This note was intended for the article ‘System of the Heavens’ published in Tait’s (September 1846). The note has been preserved in the original proof-sheet in the National Library of Scotland (MS 1670, f. 114). The corrections are not in De Quincey’s hand. This full-page note on Jupiter would, if included, have been attached to the statement ‘Kant always countenanced the idea that Jupiter had not quite finished the upholstery of his extensive premises, as a comfortable residence for man’, p. 399 above. De Quincey had written to William Tait, suggesting that he might remove the note in order to make room for additional pages on Professor John Nichol: ‘Every moment since I sent (on Thursday I think) the Nichol art., I have felt a close was waiting: for as yet nothing on N. himself. – This is now all done: and with a satisfaction to my own view of it that I seldom attain. But it takes 4pp. more. On the other hand a page might be gained by throwing out the note on Kant’ (10 August 1846; NLS MS 1670, f. 101). De Quincey refers to Gustave de Pontécoulant (1795–1874), whose Théorie analytique du système du monde, 4 vols (Paris: Bachelier, 1829–46) was among the works cited in Nichol’s System of the Heavens (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1846).