TRANSLATOR S INTRODUCTION XX111 



philosophy, which he could not understand, still 

 tries to show that ' his claims to originality were ill- 

 founded/ and he declaims at large on the 'evil 

 which has arisen from his writings.' It was really 

 Professor De Morgan's Account of the Speculations 

 of Thomas Wright of Durham in 1848 (reprinted 

 below in Appendix C) which first drew the atten- 

 tion of English scientists to Kant's scientific work ; 

 and it is evident that De Morgan, stimulated by 

 the reference of Arago, owed his information about 

 Kant not to direct study of his writings, but to the 

 competent guidance of Struve. In the admirable 

 article on Kant by Dr. Cairns in the eighth edition 

 of the Encyclopedia Britannica in 1857, Kant's 

 Theory of the Heavens is appreciatively mentioned 

 and its style commended, but its full significance is 

 not yet grasped. Robert Grant, in his able History 

 of Physical Astronomy (1852), makes but the briefest 

 reference to Kant (p. 574) ; and even such an 

 excellent work as Professor Nichol's Cyclopcedia of 

 the Physical Sciences, while giving a brilliant 

 exposition of the nebular theory of Laplace, has 

 nothing to say of Kant. Herbert Spencer, in his 

 First Principles, published in 1862, makes no 

 mention of the greatest modern expounder of 

 the theory of cosmic evolution ; and while in ex- 

 pounding his own theory and law of evolution 

 he embraces the sidereal heavens within its range, 

 he has yet in view only Laplace's hypothesis, 

 and still continues to accept generally the Ring 



