JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. 125 



I am not here either to defend or to attack Priestley's 

 philosophical views, and I cannot say that I am person- 

 ally disposed to attach much value to episcopal author- 

 ity in philosophical questions ; but it seems right to call 

 attention to the fact, that those of Priestley's opinions 

 which have brought most odium upon him, have been 

 openly promulgated, without challenge, by persons oc- 

 cupying the highest positions in the State Church. 



I must confess that what interests me most about 

 Priestley's materialism, is the evidence that he saw dimly 

 the seed of destruction which such materialism carries 

 within its own bosom. In the course of his reading for 

 his " History of Discoveries relating to Yision, Light, 

 and Colours," he had come upon the speculations of 

 Boscovich and Michell, and had been led to admit the 

 sufficiently obvious truth that our knowledge of mat- 

 ter is a knowledge of its properties ; and that of its 

 substance if it have a substance we know nothing. 

 And this led to the further admission that, so far as we 

 can know, there may be no difference between the sub- 

 stance of matter and the substance of spirit (" Disquisi- 

 tions," p. 16). A step farther would have shown Priest- 

 ley that his materialism was, essentially, very little 

 different from the Idealism of his contemporary, the 

 Bishop of Cloyne. 



mortality of the soul ; the arguments for it are commonly derived either 

 from metaphysical topics, or moral, or physical. But it is in reality the 

 Gospel, and the Gospel alone, that has brought life and immortality to light" 

 It is impossible to imagine that a man of Whately's tastes and acquirements 

 had not read Hume or Hartley, though he refers to neither. 



