I JOSEPH PRIESTLEY 37 



he, that we owe the change. If the twentieth 

 century is to be better than the nineteenth, it will 

 be because there are among us men who walk in 

 Priestley's footsteps. 



Such men are not those whom their own gen- 

 eration delights to honour; such men, in fact, 

 rarely trouble themselves about honour, but ask, 

 in another spirit than Falstaff's, " What is honour? 

 Who hath it? He that died 0' Wednesday." But 

 whether Priestley's lot be theirs, and a future 

 generation, in justice and in gratitude, set up 

 their statues; or whether their names and fame 

 are blotted out from remembrance, their work will 

 live as long as time endures. To all eternity, the 

 sum of truth and right will have been increased 

 by their means; to all eternit}^ falsehood and 

 injustice will be the weaker because they have 

 lived. 



