1813.] Dr. Joseph Priestley, d*J 



the past history of mankind, and I ftar, too, the present aspect 

 of Europe, are much more favourable to the notiOD, ibat man- 

 kind are doomed to travel in periodical circles of improvement 

 and retrogradation. Perhaps it may be true, and I am willing 

 to hope so, that improvements once made are never entirely 

 lost, unless they are superseded by something much more 

 advantageous; and that therefore the knowledge of the human 

 race, upon the whole, is progressive: but political establish- 

 ments, at least as far as we can judge from the past history of 

 mankind, have their uniform periods of progress and decay. 

 Nations seem incay tble of profiting by experience, and cannot 

 therefore make much progress except by mere accident. Every 

 nation seems destined to run the same career, and the history 

 may be comprehended under the following words: Poverty, 

 Liberty, Industry, Power, Wealth, Dissipation, Anarchy, De- 

 struction. And when a nation has once run this career, it seems 

 incapable of renovation: virtue once destroyed can never be 

 renewed. 



Dr. Priesley's short Essay on the Pirst Principles of Civil 

 Government was first published in 1768. In it he lays it down 

 as the foundation of his reasoning, that it must be understood, 

 whether it be expressed or not, that all people live in society for 

 their mutual advantage: so that the good and happiness of the 

 members, that is, the majority of the members of any state, is 

 the great standard by which every thing relating to that stale 

 must be finally determined; and though it may be supposed that 

 a body of people may be bound by a voluntary resignation of all 

 their rights to a single person, or to a few, it can never be 

 supposed that the resignation is obligatory on their posterity, 

 because it is manifestly contrary to the good of the whole that it 

 shall be so.'* From this first principle, which for my own part 

 I consider reasonable, and even self-evident, he deduces all his 

 political maxims. Kings, senators, and nobles, are merely the 

 servants of the public; and when they abuse their power, in the 

 people lies the right of deposing, and consequently of punishing 

 them. He examines the expediency of hereditary sovereignty, 

 of hereditary rank and privilege, of the duration of parliament, 

 and of the right of voting, with an evident tendency to repub- 

 lican principles, though he does not express himself very clearly 

 on the subject. Such appear to have been his political principles 

 in 1768, when his book was published. It excited no alarm, 

 and drew but little attention. These principles he retained ever 

 after; or indeed he may be said to have become more moderate' 

 instead of violent. Though he approved of a republic iri the 

 abstract, yet considering the habits and prejudices of the people 

 of Great Britain, he laid it down as a principle that their present 

 form of government wjis best suited to them. He thought^ 

 , Vol. I. N°IL G 



