S6 Biographical Account of [Feb. 



creed. Were I to enter upon the subject, it would not be easily 

 exhausted j but it is unnecessary, and would be on many accounts 

 improper. 



We come now to view Dr. Priestley as a metaphysician. 

 Upon his metaphysical opinions, however, I consider it unne- 

 cessary to go into detail. He adopted Dr. Hartley^s peculiar 

 opinions as the basis of his whole doctrines ; and was at the 

 trouble to publish a kind of abstract of Dr. Hartley's book. He 

 distinguished himself chiefly by adopting two metaphysical 

 opinions, both of which procured him a good deal of obloquy 

 and opposition. He denied the existence of an immaterial being 

 or soul in man. Thinking, according to him, depends entirely 

 upon organization. Man is merely material. When he dies, 

 he dies completely, and continues insensible till the body is 

 again restored, when he revives with the same sensations and 

 information that he formerly possessed, and insensible of the 

 interval which has elapsed since his death. He adopted the 

 side of necessity in his disquisitions, on the long agitated ques- 

 tion of Liberty and Necessity, and supports his opinion by nearly 

 the same arguments as those advanced by Mr. Cowper and Dr. 

 Crombie in their subsequent essays on the same subject. For 

 my part, I consider this celebrated question as little more than a 

 verbal dispute. Both sides seem to mean precisely the same 

 thing, though they express themselves in a different manner. 

 As to Dr. Priestley's answer to the Scotch metaphysicians, and 

 his refutation of their doctrine of common sense, I do not think 

 it necessary to enter upon the subject. Every body is of opinion, 

 I believe, that this refutation, at least as far as Dr. Reid is con- 

 cerned, was incomplete; and that the style of writing in which 

 Dr. Priestley indulged was highly indecent and improper : in 

 deed he himself afterwards confessed as much. 



Let us in the last place take a view of the political principles 

 of Dr. Priestley, and see whether they will account for that 

 obloquy and persecution to which he in some measure fell a 

 victim, 



I may remark, in the . first place, that he was an advocate for 

 the perfectibility of the human species, or at least its continually 

 increasing tendency to improvement : a doctrine extremely 

 pleasing in itself, warmly supported by Franklin and Price, and 

 which the wild principles of Condorcet, Godwin, and Beddoes, 

 have at last brought into discredit. This doctrine was taught by 

 Priestley in the outset of his Treatise on Civil Government, first 

 published in 17^^. It is a speculation of so very agreeable a 

 nature, so congenial to our warmest wishes, and so flattering to 

 the prejudices of humanity, that one feels much pain to be 

 obliged to give it up. Perhaps it may be true in a limited sense, 

 though the very impressive and convincing reasoning of Malthus, 



