Ixvi KANT'S UNIVERSAL NATURAL HISTORY 



pound the idea that the stars are not scattered 

 without order or connection in space, but have a 

 systematic arrangement or constitution, like the 

 solar system, whereby they are all bound into one 

 immense unity and connection. This view he pub- 

 lished in 1750, in a work entitled An Original 

 Theory or Hypothesis of the Universe, and it was a 

 summary of this work, which appeared in a Ham- 

 burg Journal on 1st January, 1751, that set Kant 

 athinking and led him to his more comprehensive 

 speculations on the Cosmogony. Through its 

 influence upon Kant, Wright's speculation and 

 work have been rescued from the oblivion into 

 which they had fallen, and they are now more 

 or less familiar to English students of the 

 subject. But I give in Appendix B the means of 

 more exactly judging of Kant's obligations to 

 Thomas Wright than has hitherto been available 

 in English. My attention was drawn some time 

 ago by the Librarian of the Edinburgh University 

 to a manuscript copy in that Library of the very 

 rare article of the Hamburg Journal of 1751, which 

 summarised Wright's views, and which Kant read 

 at that time, and I have translated it in that 

 Appendix. 1 Kant himself has very frankly acknow- 

 ledged his obligation to Thomas Wright in a way 

 that was characteristic of him, and which earned 



1 The MS. in the Edinburgh University Library (Box 31) was, as I 

 understand, copied from a copy brought by Professor Copeland from 

 Gottingen, now in the Library of the Edinburgh Royal Observatory. 



