MEMOIE OE PEIESTLEY. 



READ BEFORE THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE BY M. CDVIER, JUNE 27^ 



1805. 



[Translated by C. A. Alexander.] 



[The discourses by which the French Academy of Sciences is accus- 

 tomed to commemorate its deceased members, whether native or for- 

 eign, constitute, it is known, a body of highly interesting biographical 

 and scientific literature. Far from being limited to encomium, as the 

 title of "Eloges," by which they are usually called, might suggest, 

 they maintain a tone of candid criticism, and in dispensing justice to 

 scientific discoverers deal in enlarged and original views of science 

 itself. The names of their authors — of Delambre, Fourier, Cuvier, 

 Arago and others — would teach us to expect no less. 



Those delivered by Arago, late perpetual secretary of the academy, 

 have been recently translated and published in England among the 

 works of that distinguished and lamented individual. A few others 

 may be found dispersed through the volumes of scientific periodicals 

 of Great Britain, but as these are little accessible to the general 

 reader, and as many have not been translated which well deserved 

 to be so, it has been thought that a more extended collection than has 

 yet appeared would not be unacceptable to the literary public. 



In this view, a translation, not indeed of the whole series, but of 

 such as, having not been already published in this country, may 

 serve to give a connected and popular exposition of the progress of 

 science, has been undertaken at the suggestion of the Secretary of 

 the Smithsonian Institution ; and the proposed work will appear under 

 the auspices of the Institution, in so far, at least, as to guarantee the 

 correctness of its views and the fidelity of its execution. 



As a specimen of the work, as well as for its own intrinsic interest, 

 the following memoir of one of the most original and ingenious pro- 

 moters of modern science, who closed his eventful life in our own 

 country^ is appended to the present report.] 



Joseph Priestley, the subject of the present discourse, was an 

 English clergyman, whose important discoveries in physics occasioned 

 his being chosen a foreign associate of the Academy of Sciences of 

 Paris, and the National Institute lost no time in associating him with 

 itself by the same title.* As he belonged besides to most scientific 

 academies of his time, it may be that the homage which we this day 

 render him has been already oifered to his memory in all the great 

 capitals of the civilized world. 



This unanimity of commendation will appear the more encouraging 



* The Academy of Sciences, with its kindred bodies, having been suppressed by a decree 

 of the convention in 1793, was replaced in 1795 by the National Institute, divided at first 

 into classes, which, on the restoration of the monarchy, again received the name of acade- 

 mies. — Tr. 



