216 Dr. Henry o?i the Philosophical Character of Dr. Priestley- 



the vast and diversified field of human knowledge. In devoting, 

 through the greater part of Iiis life, a large portion of his at- 

 tention to theological pursuits, he fulfilled what he strongly 

 felt to be his primary duty as a minister of religion. This is 

 not the fit occasion to pronounce an opinion of the fruits of 

 those inquiries, related as they are to topics which still con- 

 tinue to be agitated as matters of earnest controversy. In 

 Ethics, in Metaphysics, in the philosophy of Language, and 

 in that of General History, he expatiated largely. He has 

 given particular histories of the Sciences of Electricity and of 

 Optics, characterized by strict impartiality, and by great per- 

 spicuity of language and arrangement. Of the mathematics, 

 he appears to have had only a general or elementary know- 

 ledge; nor perhaps did the original qualities, or acquired 

 habits, of his mind fit him to excel in the exact sciences. On 

 the whole, though Dr. Priestley may have been surpassed by 

 many in vigour of understanding and capacity for profound 

 research, yet it would be difficult to produce an instance of a 

 writer more eminent for the variety and versatility of his 

 talents, or more meritorious for their zealous, unwearied, and 

 productive employment. 



APPENDIX. 



Since the foregoing pages were written, I have added a 

 few remarks on a passage contained in a recent work of Victor 

 Cousin, in which that writer has committed a material error 

 as to the orio-in of Dr. Priestley's philosophical discoveries. 

 " La chimie,"*he observes, "est une creation du dixhuitieme 

 siecle, une creation de la France ; c'est I'Europe entiere qui 

 a appele chimie Fran9aise le mouvement qui a imprime a 

 cette belle science une impulsion si forte et une direction si 

 sao-e; c'est a I'exemple et sur les traces de Lavoisier, de 

 Guyton, de Fourcroy, de Berthollet, de Vauquelin, que se 

 sont formes et que marchent encore les grands chimistes 

 etrangers, ici Priestley et Davy : la Klaproth et Berzelius." 

 {Cou7% de VHistoire de la Philosophie, torn. i. p. 25.) 



It is to be lamented that so enlightened a writer as Victor 

 Cousin, yielding, in this instance, to the seduction of national 

 vanity, should have advanced pretensions in behalf of his 

 countrymen, which have no foundation in truth or justice. 

 Nothinfr can be more absurd or unprofitable than to claim 

 honours in science, either for individuals or for nations, the 

 title to which may be at once set aside by an appeal to public 

 and authentic records. i ., j 



It was in England, not in France, that the first decided 

 advances were made in our knowledge of elastic fluids. To 



say 



