THE 

 LONDON, EDINBURGH and DUBLIN 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 



AND 



JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



[THIRD SERIES.] 



APRIL 1848. 



XXXVI. An Account of the Speculations q/" Thomas Wright 

 of Durham. By Prof. De Morgan*. 



MARAGO, in his account of William Herschel, pub- 

 • lished in the Paris An?maire for 184'2, recalled the 

 attention of astronomers to the fact that some speculative 

 researches into the constitution of the stellar universe had 

 preceded those of his illustrious subject. He instances Wright, 

 Kant and Lambert, from the second of whom he draws all his 

 information as to the first. Professor Struve, in his recently 

 published Etudes cV Astronomie Stellaire, St. Petersburg, 1847, 

 8vo, again mentions Wright from Kant, and gives the titles 

 of his works from Lalande. But neither Kant, Arago, nor 

 Struve, had seen the work of Wright in question. I pro- 

 pose to give an account of it, as of a speculation which 

 must take a high rank among those daring and yet sober 

 attempts at prediction of future results, which are, and ought 

 to be, repaid upon success for the contempt with which 

 they are always received on appearance. The author did 

 not, as speculators sometimes do, attempt to discount his 

 fame, and to procure an endorsement of good names for a bill 

 of long date upon posterity. He published his work in a 

 quiet way, and left time to show what it was worth. 



The workf in question is entitled Theory of the Universe, 



• Commuiiicated by the Author. 



t 'An Original Theory or New Hypothesis of the Universe, Founded 

 upon the Laws of Nature, and solving by Mathematical Principles the Ge- 

 neral Phaenoniena of the Visil)le Creation ; and particularly the Via Lactea, 

 Conipris'd in Nine Familiar Letters from the Author to his Friend. And 

 Illustrated with upwards of Thirty Graven and Mezzotinto Plates, By the 

 Best M.isters. By Thomas Wright, of Durham. 



One Sun by Day, by Nii^ltt ten Thousand shine, 

 And /if^^/U us deep into the Deity. — Dr. You.vg, 



London : Printed for the Author, and sold by H. Chapelle, in Grosvcnor 

 Street. MDCCL." Quarto, pp. xii. + 84, plates 32. 



Phil. Mag. S. 3. Vol. 32. No. 2 1 5. April 1 848. R 



