JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. 121 



political, or theological views were most responsible for 

 the bitter hatred which was borne to him by a large 

 body of his countrymen,* and which found its expres- 

 sion in the malignant insinuations in which Burke, to his 

 everlasting shame, indulged in the House of Commons. 



Without containing much that will be new to the 

 readers of Hobbes, Spinoza, Collins, Hume, and Hartley, 

 and, indeed, while making no pretensions to originality, 

 Priestley's " Disquisitions relating to Matter and Spirit," 

 and his <; Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity illus- 

 trated," are among the most powerful, clear, and un- 

 flinching expositions of materialism and necessarianism 

 which exist in the English language, and are still well 

 worth reading. 



Priestley denied the freedom of the will in the sense 

 of its self-determination ; he denied the existence of a 

 soul distinct from the body ; and as a natural conse- 

 quence, he denied the natural immortality of man. 



In relation to these matters English opinion, a cen- 

 tury ago, was very much what it is now. 



A man may be a necessarian without incurring graver 



* " In all the newspapers and most of the periodical publications I was 

 represented as an unbeliever in Revelation, and no better than an atheist." 

 "Autobiography," Rutt. vol. i. p. 124. "On the walls of houses, etc., 

 and especially where I usually went, were to be seen, in large characters, 

 * MADAN FOR EVER ; DAMN PRIESTLEY ; NO PRESBYTERIANISM ; DAMN THE 

 PRESBYTERIANS,' etc. etc. ; and, at one time, I was followed by a number of 

 boys, who left their play, repeating what they had seen on the walls, and 

 shouting out, * Damn Priestley ; damn him, damn him, for ever, for ever, 

 etc. etc. This was no doubt a lesson which they had been taught by their 

 parents, and what they, I fear, had learned from their superiors." " Appeal 

 to the Public on the Subject of the Riots at Birmingham." 



