TRANSACTIONS. 
69 
yet in the deduction of general principles, however sound and 
important; but as having a necessary tendency to increase the 
intellectual power and energy of man, and to exalt human nature 
to the highest dignity, of which it is susceptible. The springs 
of such inquiries he represents as inexhaustible; and the pros¬ 
pects that may be gained by successive advances in knowledge, 
as in themselves “ truly sublime and glorious.” 
Into our estimate of the intellectual character of an individual, 
the extent and the comprehensiveness of his studies must always 
enter as an essential element. Of Dr. Priestley it may be justly 
affirmed, that few men have taken a wider range over the vast 
and diversified field of human knowledge. In devoting, through 
the greater part of his life, a large portion of his attention to 
theological pursuits, he fulfilled what he strongly felt to be his 
primary duty as a minister of religion. This is not the fit 
occasion to pronounce an opinion of the fruits of those inquiries, 
related as they are to topics, which still continue to be agitated 
as matters of earnest controversy. In Ethics, in Metaphysics, 
in the philosophy of Language, and in that of General History, 
he expatiated largely. He has given particular histories of the 
Sciences of Electricity and of Optics, characterized by strict 
impartiality, and by great perspicuity of language and arrange¬ 
ment. Of the Mathematics, he appears to have had only a ge¬ 
neral or elementary knowledge ; nor, perhaps, did the original 
qualities, or acquired habits, of his mind fit him to excel in 
the exact sciences. On the whole, though Dr. Priestley may have 
been surpassed by many in vigour of understanding and capacity 
for profound research, yet it would be difficult to produce an 
instance of a writer more eminent for the variety and versatility 
of his talents, or more meritorious for their zealous, unwearied, 
and productive employment. 
APPENDIX. 
Since the foregoing pages were written, I have added a few 
remarks on a passage contained in a recent work of Victor 
Cousin, in which that writer has committed a material error as 
to the origin of Dr. Priestley’s philosophical discoveries. “ La 
chimie,” he observes, “ est une creation du dixhuitieme siecle, 
une creation de la France ; c’est l’Europe entiere qui a appelle 
chimie Fran 9 aise le mouvement qui a imprime a cette belle 
science une impulsion si forte et une direction si sage ; c’est a 
l’exemple et sur les traces de Lavoisier, de Guyton, de Four- 
croy, de Berthollet, de Vauquelin, que se sont formes et que 
marchent encore les grands chimistes etrangers, ici Priestley et 
