I JOSEPH PRIESTLEY 35 



the clergy of the Church are men of pure life 

 and conversation, zealous in the discharge of their 

 duties ; and at present, 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 knowledge. Consider that the labours of 

 Laplace, of Young, of Davy, and of Faraday ; of 

 Cuvier, of Lamarck, and of Robert Brown ; of 

 Von Baer, and of Schwann ; of Smith and of 

 Button, have all been carried on since Priestley 

 discovered oxygen ; and consider that they are 

 now things of the past, concealed 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 spreading 

 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 

 assent ; and you will have a faint image of 



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