I JOSEPH PRIESTLEY 3 



other the fire kindled, in the childhood of the 

 world, at the Promethean altar of Science. 



The main incidents of Priestley's life are so well 

 kpown that I need dwell upon them at no great 

 length. 



Born in 1733, at Fieldhead, near Leeds, and 

 brought up among Calvinists of the straitest or- 

 thodoxy, the boy's striking natural ability led to 

 his being devoted to the profession of a minister 

 of religion; and, in 1752, he was sent to the 

 Dissenting Academy at Daventry — an institution 

 which authority left undisturbed, though its ex- 

 istence contravened the law. The teachers under 

 whose instruction and influence the young man 

 came at Daventry, carried out to the letter the 

 injunction to " try all things: hold fast that which 

 is good," and encouraged the discussion of every 

 imaginable proposition with complete freedom, 

 the leading professors taking opposite sides; a 

 discipline which, admirable as it may be from a 

 purely scientific point of view, would seem to be 

 calculated to make acute, rather than sound, 

 divines. Priestley tells us, in his " Autobiog- 

 raphy," that he generally found himself on the un- 

 orthodox side: and, as he grew older, and his fac- 

 ulties attained their maturity, this native tendency 

 towards heterodoxy grew with his growth and 

 strengthened with his strength. He passed from 

 Calvinism to Ariauism; and finallv, in middle life. 



