26 JOSEPH PRIESTLEY I 



We all know that " a saint in crape is twice a 

 saint in lawn ; " but it is not yet admitted that the 

 views which are consistent with such saintliness in 

 lawn, become diabolical when held by a mere dis- 

 senter. 1 



I am not here either to defend or to attack 

 Priestley's philosophical views, and I cannot say 

 that I am personally disposed to attach much 

 value to episcopal authority in philosophical ques- 

 tions ; but it seems right to call attention to the 

 fact, that those of Priestley's opinions which have 

 brought most odium upon him have been openly 

 promulgated, without challenge, by persons occu- 

 pying the highest positions in the State Church. 



I must confess that what interests me most 

 about Priestley's materialism, is the evidence that 

 he saw dimly the seed of destruction which such 

 materialism carries within its own bosom. In the 

 course of his reading for his " History of Dis- 

 coveries relating to Vision, Light, and Colours/' 

 he had come upon the speculations of Boscovich 



1 "Not only is Priestley at one with Bishop Courtenay in this 

 matter, but with Hartley and Bonnet, both of them stout cham- 

 pions of Christianity. Moreover, Archbishop Whately's essay 

 is little better than an expansion of the first paragraph of 

 Hume's famous essay on the Immortality of the Soul : "By 

 the mere light of reason it seems difficult to prove the immor- 

 tality of the soul ; the arguments for it are commonly derived 

 either from metaphysical topics, or moral, or physical. But it 

 is in reality the Gospel, and the Gospel alone, that has brought 

 life and immortality to light." It is impossible to imagine that 

 a man of Whately's tastes and acquirements had not read Hume 

 ar Hartley, though he refers to neither. 



