304 
aware of the sources from which information 
could have been obtained, and so has nothing 
to tell,—does not even know the dates of his 
birth and death, or why he was called ‘of Dur- 
ham.’ Wright was born at Byer’s Green, near 
Durham, in 1711, and died there in 1786. 
Brought up as a ‘philosophical instrument- 
maker,’ his attention was called early to mathe- 
matico-physical problems and, by his thirty- 
first year, he had gained such reputation as a 
teacher of mathematics (like other eminent 
English scientists, a private teacher) that he was 
called to the chair of navigation by the Imper- 
ial Academy of St. Petersburg, an offer which 
he did not accept. There would seem to be no 
reasonable doubt that he was the first to light 
upon the modern physico-philosophical theory 
of the material universe. As De Morgan says, 
“He gave the theory of the milky way which 
is now considered as established,’ and he pre- 
dicted ‘the ultimate resolution of the rings of 
Saturn into congeries of small satellites’ (203). 
The conclusion of Wright’s seventh letter fur- 
nishes a striking instance of his remarkable 
prevision. ‘‘Thus, Sir, you have had my full 
opinion, without the least reserve, concerning 
the visible creation, considered as part of the 
finite universe; how far I have succeeded in 
my designed solution of the Via Lactea, upon 
which the theory of the whole is formed, is a 
thing will hardly be known in the present 
century, as in all probability it may require 
some ages of observation to discover the truth 
of it’? (202). The ‘ages of observation’ and 
the Lick Observatory have not failed him. An 
edition of the ‘ Original Theory’ was published 
in this country, at Philadelphia, by Rafinesque 
(1837). If Dr. Hastie had done no more than 
rescue this man’s name from blank oblivion, he 
had deserved well of students of science. And 
he has accomplished much besides. 
Apart altogether from its contribution to our 
knowledge of the manner in which Kant’s early 
scientific studies influenced his later philo- 
sophical speculation—a contribution by no 
means inconsiderable as our somewhat scanty 
literature in English goes, the book ought to 
have distinct effect in bringing us to a clear 
consciousness of the close and friendly rela- 
tions between science and philosophy main- 
SCIENCE. 
[N.S. Vou. XIII. No. 321. 
tained from the days of Bacon, Galileo and 
Descartes till broken off, during the estrange- 
ment between the German idealists and modern 
scientific men, since 1840. This is a long story, 
upon which I can not enter now. Further, it 
happens to have been misunderstood or for- 
gotten till within the last few years. An earnest 
of better things appears to some at least to be 
one of the most interesting features of con- 
temporary tendencies. To build this promise 
into actual fact, we need just such books as 
this. And, accordingly, Dr. Hastie has fairly 
won our warmest thanks. It is one of his 
greatest merits that he stands clear from all 
scientific and philosophical controversies, and 
so can state what he knows in its definite 
bearings, not in those which he might desire it 
to assume. 
There must be some good hope for the future 
of Scottish theology when, at the university 
which has recently lost from its staff the most 
eminent living British physicist and the great- 
est living British Kantian scholar, the chief 
chair of the divinity faculty is ornamented by 
the occupancy of a thinker so successful in ap- 
preciative unification of the sundered learning 
of his famous colleagues. 
R. M. WENLEY. 
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. 
A School Chemistry. Intended for use in High 
Schools and in Elementary Classes in Col- 
leges. By JOHN WADDELL, B.A. (Dal. Coll.), 
B.Se. (Lond.), Ph.D. (Heidelberg), D.Sc. 
(Edin.). Member of the American Chemical 
Society ; formerly Assistant to the Professor 
of Chemistry in Edinburgh University ; Lec- 
turer in Chemistry in the School of Mining, 
Kingston. 
So far as the general method of arrangement 
and treatment is concerned, this book is similar 
to others intended for the same purpose; but 
there are several points to which attention 
might be called. The author has avoided the 
error so often made of subordinating facts to 
theories, and says in the preface: ‘'The en- 
deavor is made in this book to help the pupil 
in the discovery of new facts, to enable him to 
see their connections, and to show how facts 
lead to theory and theory aids in investigation 
