Thomas Wright’s An Original Theory or New Hypothesis of the Universe (1750)
“I own I can never look upon the Stars without wondering why the whole World does not become Astronomers”. So admits Thomas Wright in An Original Theory or New Hypothesis of the Universe (1750). Written in the form of nine letters to a nameless friend, the book puts forwards “my Theory of the Universe, and the Ideas I have form’d of the known Creation.”
Although he was influenced by Comenius' pansophic theories of universal knowledge from a century earlier, Wright's theory of the heavens was strikingly original. Over the course of his discussions on the views of previous authors (illustrated in plate iii), the position and movement of bodies in the sky, and the implications for time, eternity and the soul, he was “the first to correctly postulate that clusters of starry nebulae were in fact galaxies too distant for us to discern clearly, and that the luminous blur of the Milky Way was simply an optical effect caused by our immersion in it”, as David Braffman explains in the Getty Research Institute blog: see Wright's Plate XXIX for his depiction.
This insight into the Via Lactea pre-dated Sir William Herschel and Caroline Herschel’s work in astronomy by two decades, and was an acknowledged influence on Immanuel Kant’s 1755 Universal natural history and theory of the heavens. It took Edwin Hubble’s photographs in the 1920s to offer proof of the nature of the Milky Way, and the telescope named after him continues to expand our fields of knowledge by use of images.
Born in County Durham in 1711, Wright became, to use the title of Judy Preston's contextualising paper in Garden History in 2010, a polymath in Arcadia, extremely well-versed in mathematics, sciences, and the arts, as well as an eminent garden designer. He has only one other published book, an introduction to the antiquities of County Louth, Ireland, but his diary, and other papers, are in the Special Collections and Archives at Durham University, where an exhaustive description of his life and works can be found. Not all his ideas were as well-founded as his work on the Via Lactea; in a manuscript sequel to An Original Theory, he proposed “that the sky was solid and studied with inward-pointing volcanoes down whose shafts we see the stars”.
The thirty-two “graven and mezzotinto” plates found at the end of An Original Theory — printed “by the Best Masters” and likely based on Wright's drawings — reveal his remarkable range of vision. The most simple images show what Wright has observed in the night sky (Plate XVI), then diagrams of how these constellations (Plate XIX) and comets (Plate IX) are arranged and understood. From his empirical observations, and deductions about what this must mean for the relative positions and orbits (Plate XXII), Wright develops a much more ambitious proposal as to the construction of the universe. Plate XXVII depicts a globe within a globe, part of his hypothesis on the patterns and rules followed by bodies in space. It’s a hypothesis which culminates in his globular visions of the last two plates, which show full and section views of “the Object of that incomprehensible Being, which alone and in himself comprehends and constitutes supreme Perfection”. The extraordinary, endless eyes of the final plate (XXXII) give a good sense of Wright’s cosmic conclusion, that just as the solar system as we observe it is full of complex bodies, so too, but on a larger, parallel scale is the wider universe: an “unlimited plenum of creations”, all centred on the law and vision of God.
After a life of scientific discovery, adventure, and a career as a garden designer, Thomas Wright died in 1786. His observations and imaginations of his place in the greater scheme of things appear to have reconciled him to all “those little Difficulties incident to human Nature”. Presented with the immensity, and the visual richness, of space and the heavens, he concluded, “But here, even in this World, are Joys which our Ideas of Heaven can scarce exceed, and if Imperfection appear thus lovely, what must Perfection be”.
Featured below, all thirty-two of the illustrative plates, with their relevant description taken from the main body of the book. We've also made a few prints of the images which you can see in our shop here.
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“Part of a Medal representing the Solar System”
“A representation of a solar System.” (Wright makes no mention in his text of the orouboros encircling the diagram.)
“Representing a section of the cosmical Theories of Oviedus, Bede, and many others.”
“A true Delineation of the Polar System, with the Trajectories of three of the principal Comets. The Scale being nearly five hundred and eighteen Millions of Miles to an Inch.”
“A true Projection of the System of the known Comets, all in just Proportion and Position to the Orbits of Saturn and Jupiter.”
“The satellite Systems, proportionable to one another.”
“The Body of the Earth and Moon, with their common Center of Gravity.”
“A proportional Drawing of all the primary and secondary Planets together, distinguished by their Characters.”
“An exact Scheme of the principal known Comets, in just Proportion, to the Globe of the Earth.” (Covering comets of the years 1680, 1682, 1665, 1742, 1744.)
“The Sun and Moon in the just Proportion of their mean Diameters, with two of the Comets A and B, and the five erratick Planets, as they are observed at the Earth, in a middle State of their Distances from it.”
“Geometrical Scale to all the primary Parts of the visible Creation, with regard to the Distance of Orbits of Mercury, Saturn and Syrius, compared with the Globe of the Sun.”
“[Hemisphere] where the true Tract of this most surprizing Zone of Light is distinguished amongst the principal Stars.”
“[Hemisphere] where the true Tract of this most surprizing Zone of Light is distinguished amongst the principal Stars.”
“An Observation I made myself, of a bright Part of this Zone near the Feet of Antinous which, (by a Mistake of the Engraver) is, as it appears through a Tube of two convex Glasses.”
“The Pleides , a well known Knot of Stars in the Sign Taurus , as they appeared to me thro’ a one Foot reflecting Telescope.”
“A view of the Persides, another surprizing Knot of Stars.”
“A perspective View of the visible Creation, including the regions around our Sun, Syrius and Rigel. The rest is a promiscuous Disposition of all the Variety of other Systems within our finite Vision, as they are supposed to be posited behind one another, in the infinite Space, and round every visible Star.”
“Shewing a decrease in the Obliquity of the Poles.”
“A Plan of the principal Stars that form the Pleiades.”
“A true Plan and Combination of the principal Stars that form the Persedes.”
Depiction of hypothesis — orbits of stars “all moving the same way”."
Depiction of hypothesis — “local Motion of the Sun, the Earth in her proper secondary Orbit”.
Imaginary Section of an “artificial Horizon of a Globe”, with “all the stars scattered promiscuously”.
“A Representation of the Convexity, if I may call it so, of the intire Creation, as a universal Coalition of all the Stars consphered round one general Center, and as all governed by one and the same Law”.
“A centeral Section of the same [the intire Creation], with the Eye of Providence seated in the Center, as in the virtual Agent of Creation.”
“A Creation of a double Construction, where a superior Order of Bodies C, may be imagined to be circumscribed by the former one A, as possessing a more eminent Seat, and nearer the supream Presence, and consequently of a more perfect Nature.”
A Section, and Segments of a Creation of a double Construction, “as I hope will give you a perfect Idea of what I mean by such a Theory.”
Stars moving “in the Manner of Saturn's Rings, nay, perhaps Ring within Ring, to a third or fourth Order”.
Plane and profile views of stars moving around a central body — “not only the Phenomena of the Milky Way may be thus accounted for, but also all the cloudy Spots, and irregular Distribution of them”.
“The real Magnitude of the Globe of the Earth, compar’d with the just Extent of the Island of Great -Britain, which you will find with Ireland , and the rest of its Islands, seated near the Center of the Projection.”
“You may if you please, call a partial View of Immensity, or without much Impropriety perhaps, a finite View of Infinity”.
“The Object of that incomprehensible Being, which alone and in himself comprehends and constitutes supreme Perfection”.
Imagery from this post is featured in
Affinities
our special book of images created to celebrate 10 years of The Public Domain Review.
500+ images – 368 pages
Large format – Hardcover with inset image
Nov 19, 2020
