The pains of disconcerted or frustrated habits, and the inherent pleasure there is in following them, are motives which nature has put into our wills without generally caring to inform us why; and she sometimes decrees, indeed, that her reasons shall not be ours.

In 1872 Wright helped found The Metaphysical Club with other Harvard intellectuals such as Charles Sanders Peirce William James and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Although in general he adhered to the evolution theory he was a free-lancer in thought. In 1852 he graduated at Harvard and became computer to the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac.