APPENDIX C. 



PROFESSOR DE MORGAN'S ACCOUNT OF THE SPECU- 

 LATIONS OF THOMAS WRIGHT OF DURHAM. 1 



M. ARAGO, in his account of William Herschel, published 

 in the Paris Annuaire for 1842, 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 cC Astronomic 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 propose 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 work 2 in question is entitled Theory of the Universe, 



1 Reprinted from The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical 

 Magazine and Journal of Science, Vol. xxxn. January -June, 1848. 



2 ' An Original Theory or New Hypothesis of the Universe, Founded 

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

 General Phsenomena of the Visible Creation ; and particularly the Via 

 Lactea. Compris'd in Nine Familiar Letters from the Author to his 

 Friend. And Illustrated with upwards of Thirty Graven and Mezzo- 

 tinto Plates. By the Best Masters. By Thomas Wright, of Durham. 



One Sun by Day, by Night ten Thousand shine, 

 And light us deep into the DEITY. DR. YOUNG. 

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

 Grosvenor Street, MDCCL.' Quarto, pp. xii. +84, plates 32. 



