V.] JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. 95 



to be borne than all these, the unfeigned astonishment 

 and hardly disguised contempt of a brilliant society, 

 composed of men whose sympathy and esteem must 

 have been most dear to him, and to whom it was simply 

 incomprehensible that a philosopher should seriously 

 occupy himself with any form of Christianity. 



It appears to me that the man who, setting before 

 himself such an ideal of life, acted up to it con- 

 sistently, is worthy of the deepest respect, whatever 

 opinion may be entertained as to the real value of 

 the tenets which he so zealously propagated and 

 defended. 



But I am sure that I speak not only for myself, 

 but for all this assemblage, when I say that our pur- 

 pose to-day is to do honour, not to Priestley, the Uni- 

 tarian divine, but to Priestley, the fearless defender of 

 rational freedom in thought and in action : to Priestley, 

 the philosophic thinker ; to that Priestley who held a 

 foremost place among " the swift runners who hand 

 over the lamp of life," 1 and transmit from one genera- 

 tion to another the fire kindled, in the childhood of 

 the world, at the Promethean altar of Science. 



The main incidents of Priestley's life are so well 

 known that I need dwell upon them at no great 

 length. 



Born in 1*733, at Fieldhead, near Leeds, and 

 brought up among Calvinists of the straitest ortho- 

 doxy, the boy's striking natural ability led to his 



1 " Quasi cursores, vitai lampada tradunt." LUCK. De Rerum 



Nat. ii. 78. 



