TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION Ixvii 



him afterwards the designation of the 'honourable 

 Kant' It is evident, however, that Kant had not 

 the summary of the Hamburg Journal before him 

 when he wrote, nor had he ever seen Wright's book, 

 for he says (infra, p. 32): 'I cannot exactly define 

 the boundaries which lie between Mr. Wright's 

 system and my own ; nor can I point out in what 

 details I have merely imitated his sketch and have 

 carried it out further. Nevertheless, I found after- 

 wards valid reasons for considerably expanding it 

 on one side.' The reader will now be able to 

 judge of this for himself by comparing the First 

 Part of Kant's work as here translated with the 

 contents of Appendix B. Wright is now uni- 

 versally recognised as the originator of the 'disc' 

 or 'grindstone' theory of the arrangement of the 

 stars, which Sir William Herschel afterwards elabor- 

 ated on the basis of more extended and accurate 

 observations. Kant improved and simplified 

 Wright's Theory in an independent way, and gave 

 it a more exact scientific expression. But it has to 

 be carefully noted that Wright's views are directly 

 related only to the First, which is also the most 

 formal, Part of Kant's discussion ; although it must 

 also be admitted that the more original discussion 

 in the Second Part, which properly constitutes his 

 Cosmogony, arose at least indirectly from the stimulus 

 of Wright's suggestions. Wright thus stands almost 

 exactly in the same relation to Kant's early scien- 

 tific work as Hume does to his later philosophic 



