140 MEMOIR OF PEIESTLEY. 



he is accused of exciting animosity, arousing vengeance, and troubling 

 society. The physical inquirer, on the other hand, meets with in- 

 variable respect; every one acknowledges that, in the defence of truth, 

 he relies only upon reason, that his discoveries are directed solely to 

 the welfare of his fellow-men, and that his writings breathe nothing 

 but a spirit of candor and of modesty.* 



Thoroughly to know Priestly, then, it is necessary that he should 

 be sketched under both these characters ; that the theologian, meta- 

 physician, and politician should be reproduced, no less than the inge- 

 nious physicist and associate of the National Institute. At the same 

 time there can be no mistake as to the comparative prominence which 

 should be given, on the present occasion, to one or the other, and as 

 little probably as to the interest which posterity is likely to attach to 

 them. He has himself somewhere remarked that, as a means of last- 

 ing renown, the labors of science are as far superior to all others as 

 the laws of nature to the organization of societies ; and that no states- 

 man who ever rose to power in Great Britain has approached in 

 celebrity its Bacons, Newtons, and Boyles ; a maxim somewhat exag- 

 gerated, perhaps, but which it would have been fortunate if he had 

 always kept before his own eyes. Priestley, however, is not the first 

 celebrated man, whose judgment has shown itself incapable of mas- 

 tering his character. 



Mean while it is to be carefully noted that in no respect did his 

 divergent opinions influence his conduct, but that, with the exception 

 of the unmerited misfortunes which overwhelmed him in old age, the 

 whole course of his life was alike uniform and simple. The mere list 

 of his works would indicate as much; for, when it is known that he 

 produced more than a hundred treatises, no one can suppose that 

 society engrossed much of his time, or that his history can consist of 

 much more than an analysis of his writings. 



He was born at Birstal-Fieldhead, near Leeds, in 1733. His father 

 was a cloth-dresser ; his first master a dissenting minister. After 

 several years study he obtained the situation of [tutor in the Belles 

 Lettresf] at the provincial academy of Warrington, and afterwards 

 became pastor of a congregation of dissenters at Leeds. Lord Shel- 

 burn, secretary of state and afterwards first marquis of Lansdowne, 

 under a sense of Priestley's merit [which had then been established 

 by his first discoveries] induced him to accept the position of [his 

 lordship's librarian and philosophic companion, with a salary of £250, 

 reducible to £150 for life should he quit the employment.] This con- 

 nexion was terminated, without loss of confidence or friendship on 

 either part, at the end of seven years, and Priestley resumed his pas- 

 toral functions among the dissenters at Birmingham. Here he 



* Whether the contrast here presented be not pushed, in the spirit of antithesis, to too 

 great a length, will probably be differently decided, according to the previous views of the 

 reader. But that, in some of his metaphysical speculations and interpretations of propiiecy, 

 Dr. Priestley has laid himself open to the charge of temerity, will be denied by few ; nor is 

 it surprising that Cuvier should regret that such astonishing activity of intellect had not been 

 restrained to the paths of induction, where he himself had tbund so secure a footing. — Tr. 



t The words within brackets are from Lord Brougham's " Lives of Philosophers of the 

 iBmo of George III." 



