V.j JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. 123 



modern face upon ancient materialism, had extended 

 that mechanical conception to psychology; Linnaeus 

 and Haller were beginning to introduce method and 

 order into the chaotic accumulation of biological facts. 

 But those parts of physical science which deal^with heat, 

 electricity, and magnetism, and above all, chemistry, 

 in the modern sense, can hardly be said to have had 

 an existence. No one knew that two of the old 

 elemental bodies, air and water, are compounds, and 

 that a third, fire, is not a substance but a motion. 

 The great industries that have grown out of the 

 applications of modern scientific discoveries had no 

 existence, and the man who should have foretold their 

 coming into being in the days of his son, would have 

 been regarded as a mad enthusiast. 



In common with many other excellent persons, 

 Priestley believed that man is capable of reaching, and 

 will eventually attain, perfection. If the temperature 

 of space presented no obstacle, I should be glad to 

 entertain the same idea ; but judging from the past 

 progress of our species, I am afraid that the globe will 

 have cooled down so far, before the advent of this 

 natural millennium, that we shall be, at best, perfected 

 Esquimaux. For all practical purposes, however, it is 

 enough that man may visibly improve his condition 

 in the course of a century or so. And, if the picture 

 of the state of things in Priestley's time, which I have 

 just drawn, have any pretence to accuracy, I think it 

 must be admitted that there has been a considerable 

 change for the better. 



I need not advert to the well-worn topic of material 



