220 Biographical Memoir ofDr Priestley. 



His new writings did not, therefore, bring back to his opi- 

 nions any of those who had abandoned them. He found, like 

 many others who have attempted to arrest motions to which 

 they themselves had given the first impulse, that ideas once 

 thrown into the minds of men are like seeds, the produce of 

 which depends upon the laws of nature, and not upon the will 

 of those who scattered them. To which we may add, that, 

 when they have once taken root, no human power is henceforth 

 capable of plucking them up. 



I have now arrived at the most disagreeable part of my task. 

 Hitherto you have seen Priestley moving forward from one success 

 to another in the study of human science, to which he yet devoted 

 only a few leisure moments. We must now place him before you 

 on another career, struggling against the nature of things, the first 

 principles of which are covered with a veil which our reason in 

 vain attempts to penetrate, seeking to subject the world to his con- 

 jectures, consuming almost his whole life in these useless efforts, 

 and at length precipitating himself into the abyss of misfortune. 

 Here I need, like him, all your indulgence. Perhaps the de- 

 tails, into which I am about to enter, will appear to some rather 

 foreign to the place in which I speak ; but to me it would seem 

 to be peculiarly in this place that the terrible example which 

 they present, ought to be heard with some degree of interest. 



I have told you that Priestley was a clergyman. I must add 

 that he passed successively through four religions before he ven- 

 tured to publish any thing on the subject. Educated in all the 

 severity of the presbyterian communion, to which we give the 

 name of Calvinistic, and in all the asperity of the doctrine of 

 predestination as taught by Gomar, he hardly began to reflect 

 when he turned toward the milder doctrine of Arminius. But, 

 in proportion as he advanced, it seemed as if he always found 

 too much to believe. He therefore came to adopt the opinion 

 of the Arians, which, after having been almost on the point of 

 subduing Christendom in the times of Constantine''s successors, 

 has now found an asylum only in England, but which ranks 

 among its supporters the names of Milton, Clarke, Locke, and 

 even, as some say, of Newton, by whom it is in some measure 

 indemnified, in these modern times, for the loss of its ancient 

 power. 



