58 BIOGKAPHIES OF SCIENTIFIC MEN 



work by mentioning the titles of some of his books : 

 Observations on Air; The First Principles of Civil 

 Government; Disquisitions relating to Matter and 

 Spirit ; On Oratory and Criticism ; On the History 

 and Present State of Discoveries Relating to Vision, 

 Light, and Colours; The General History of the 

 Christian Church; the Doctrine of Philosophical 

 Necessity ; The Harmony of the Evangelists in Greek; 

 The Rudiments of English Grammar; Experiments on 

 Different Kinds of Air; An Introduction to the Theory 

 and Practice of Perspective ; A History of Electricity ; 

 The Doctrine of Phlogiston Established (one of his last 

 publications), etc. 



With all his faults, sympathies with American and 

 French Eevolutionists, heterodoxy, prejudices against 

 antiphlogistians, he was a manly man, devoid of mean 

 acts (which cannot be said of many of his foes), a great 

 worker, brilliant experimentalist, a learned writer, a kind 

 and genial friend, and a great controversialist in the 

 domains of theology, metaphysics, politics, and natural 

 philosophy. He was the father of pneumatic chemistry, 

 but more anon. He never could free himself of the false 

 doctrine of phlogiston ; but in the words of Voltaire : 

 " oublions les reves des grandes hommes et souvenons 

 nous des verites qu'ils nous ont enseignees." 



The truths which Priestley contributed to chemistry 

 have now to be described ; but, before doing so, it may 



