V.] JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. 125 



Whatever men's opinions as to the policy of Estab- 

 lishment, no one can hesitate to admit that the clergy 

 of the Church are men of pure life and conversation, 

 zealous in the discharge of their duties ; and, at pre- 

 sent, apparently, more bent on prosecuting one another 

 than on meddling with Dissenters. Theology itself 

 has broadened so much, that Anglican divines put 

 forward doctrines more liberal than those of Priestley ; 

 and, in our state-supported churches, one listener may 

 hear a sermon to which Bossuet might have given his 

 approbation, while another may hear a discourse in 

 which Socrates would find nothing new. 



But great as these changes may be, they sink into 

 insignificance beside the progress of physical science, 

 whether we consider the improvement of methods of 

 investigation, or the increase in bulk of solid know- 

 ledge. Consider that the labours of Laplace, of 

 Young, of Davy, and of Faraday ; of Cuvier, of 

 Lamarck, and of Eobert Brown ; of Von Baer, and of 

 Schwann ; of Smith and of Hutton, have all been 

 carried on since Priestley discovered oxygen; and 

 consider that they are now things of the past, con- 

 cealed by the industry of those who have built upon 

 them, as the first founders of a coral reef are hidden 

 beneath the life's work of their successors ; consider 

 that the methods of physical science are slowly spread- 

 ing into all investigations, and that proofs as valid 

 as those required by her canons of investigation, 

 are being demanded of all doctrines which ask for 



which it is to be hoped may speedily be removed, on the accuracy of 

 this statement. (September 1881.) 



