I JOSEPH PRIESTLEY 35 



power lias passed into the hands of the masses of 

 the people. Those whom Priestley calls their 

 servants have recognized their position, and have 

 requested the master to be so good as to go to 

 school and fit himself for the administration of his 

 property. In ordinary life, no civil disability 

 attaches to any one on theological grounds, and 

 high offices of the state are open to Papist, Jew, 

 and Secularist. 



Whatever men^s opinions as to the policy of 

 Establishment, no one can hesitate to admit that 

 the clergy of the Church are men of pure life 

 and conversation, zealous in the discharge of their 

 duties; and at present, apparently, more bent on 

 prosecuting one another than on meddling with 

 Dissenters. Theology itself has broadened so 

 much, that Anglican divines put forward doctrines 

 more liberal than those of Priestley; and, in our 

 state-supported churches, one listener may hear a 

 sermon to which Bossuet might have given his 

 approbation, while another may hear a discourse 

 in which Socrates would find nothing new. 



But great as these changes may be, they sink 

 into insignificance beside the progress of physical 

 science, whether we consider the improvement of 

 methods of investigation, or the increase in bulk 

 of solid knowledge. Consider that the labours of 

 Laplace, of Young, of Davy, and of Faraday; of 

 Cuvier, of Lamarck, and of Robert Brown; of 

 Yon Baer, and of Schwann; of Smith and of 



