T. E. Thorpe

“ Thus was the ingenious man effectually entangled in his errors, his ingenuity helping him to deceive himself by evading the force of truth. To err is human. If Priestley saw through a glass darkly, and but dimly discerned the truth, he at least strove, so far as in him lay, to reach the light. ”

“ Fontana, Lavoisier and others were, indeed, zealously engaged in using Priestley’s own facts to destroy the conception by which he explained them. An appeal to the balance was felt to be necessary, and Priestley, as a logician, could not resist it. But he was no quantitative chemist: the habits of a Cavendish were quite foreign to his genius: patient, scrupulous attention to numerical accuracy was not one of his characteristics: he was one of the most industrious of experimenters—delighting, indeed, in manipulation for the mere sake of it, but withal hasty and superficial. ”

“ It is nothing but reason and argument that can ever support any system of religion. Answer your arguments and your business is done; but your having recourse to violence is only a proof that you have nothing better to produce. Should you destroy myself, as well as my house, library and apparatus, ten more persons of equal or superior spirit and ability would instantly rise up. ”

“ In this work Priestley attempted to trace every “corruption”—that is every innovation or departure from what he conceives to be the original scheme—to its proper source and “to show what circumstances in the state of things, and especially of other prevailing opinions and prejudices, made the alteration, in doctrine or practice, sufficiently natural, and the introduction and establishment of it easy.” ”

“ In every fair bargain the buyer and the seller are equally gainers, whether money be accumulated by either of the parties or not.
“It is a great mistake to confound the king’s revenue with the gain a nation makes by its trade. No man would presume to say it is more for the public benefit that the nation should expend a million or more every year with foreigners, in order to raise a hundred thousand pounds to the revenue by the customs, than to save that million or more within ourselves and to raise only the hundred thousand pounds the other way. ”

“ Priestley, the natural philosopher, never forgot that he was a minister of religion, and that to him theology was the greatest and most important of all the sciences, and he cannot forbear even, in what he intended to be a scientific disquisition on purely natural phenomena, from inculcating his belief in the divine origin of Christianity and his opinion concerning the doctrine of purgatory and the worship of the dead. ”

“ The New Testament, in Priestley’s view, is not to be construed as a book of enigmas which might belong to any age. It is not dropped straight out of heaven into the hands of the man of to-day for him to make what he will of it. ”

“ If a few other persons, who were not designed for Holy Orders, offered themselves for education, it could not be expected that a course of studies should be provided for them only. And, indeed, as all those persons who superintended the business of education were of the clerical order, and had themselves been taught nothing but the rhetoric, logic and school-divinity, or civil law, which comprised the whole compass of human learning for several centuries, it could not be expected that they should entertain larger, or more liberal, views of education ”

“ Metals therefore are not simple substances, but consist of their calces, and something else which they take from inflammable air. And as the same may also be taken from any combustible substance, it corresponds exactly to Stahl’s phlogiston, and therefore the doctrine of it is confirmed by these experiments; that is, we must still say that in all combustible substances there is a principle capable of being transferred to other substances, which when united to the calces of metals makes them to be metals, and which, united to oil of vitriol (deprived of its water) makes it to be sulphur. ”

“ My library and laboratory sufficiently occupy me, and of common society I have as much as I want. A few more rational Christians to form a society would make this place a paradise to me, and this would be wanting in many parts of England.
“It is a pleasure to be in a place that is continually and visibly improving, and this is the case here to an astonishing degree. In every year we find a very sensible difference, and in all probability improvements of all kind will go on more rapidly than ever. Nature has done everything that can be done for any place. ”

“ I had no sooner produced this new kind of air but I was eager to see the effect it would have on water, and to produce the stony crust formed by their union, as described by Mr Scheele; and I was not disappointed in my expectations. The moment the water came into contact with this air the surface of it became white and opaque by a stony film.... Few philosophical experiments exhibit a more pleasing appearance than this, which can only be made by first producing the air confined by quicksilver, and then admitting a large body of water to it. ”

“ Thus he concluded that oil of vitriol deprived of water, and united to phlogiston, becomes sulphur; and that the calces of metals, by the addition of the same substance, become metals.... What is now contended for is that in the oil of vitriol changing into sulphur something is lost and nothing gained, and also that a calx becomes a metal by the loss of air only. And did facts correspond to this theory it would certainly be preferable to that of Stahl, as being more simple; there being one principle less to take into our account in explaining the changes of bodies. ”

“ Priestley’s productions, from the very nature of the case make no pretensions to completeness.
“In completing one discovery we never fail to get an imperfect knowledge of others of which we could have no idea before, so that we cannot solve one doubt without creating several new ones.”
He farther observes that a person who means to serve the cause of science effectually must hazard his own reputation so far as to risk even mistakes in things of less moment. ”

“ He then goes on to say that the arguments in favour of this opinion, especially those which were drawn from the experiments of Lavoisier on mercury, were “so specious” that he owns he was much inclined to adopt it. But he was evidently loth to part company with a conception which had hitherto been the central idea of his chemical creed, the very key-stone of the structure which he was pleased to regard as his philosophy. As an abstract conception, as the principle of levity, as something which was the negation of mass and which gravity repelled, phlogiston was eminently unsatisfactory. ”

“ Priestley’s description of the main properties of oxygen is however accurate, and lecturers in chemistry are indebted to him for some striking experimental illustrations of them.
“I easily conjectured,” he says, “that inflammable air would explode with more violence and a louder report by the help of dephlogisticated than of common air; but the effect far exceeded my expectations, and it has never failed to surprise every person before whom I have made the experiment.... The dipping of a lighted candle into a jar filled with dephlogisticated air is alone a very beautiful experiment. ”

“ There can be no doubt that Priestley’s coming to Birmingham contributed greatly to the interest of the meetings of the Lunar Society and reacted beneficially on Priestley himself by stimulating his activity and affording him the sympathy of congenial minds not less interested than he was in the study of natural science. As each meeting came round he was certain to find a gathering curious to hear of his latest experiments and eager to discuss with him their bearing upon the chemical doctrine of the period. ”

“ Whilst at Warrington he published a Chart of Biography, exhibiting by lines and spaces the succession of the eminent men in every age and of every profession, with the relative length of their lives, and in such manner that at any given epoch it could be seen not only who flourished in it, but how all their ages stood with respect to one another, who were a man’s contemporaries, how far any of them was before him, or how far after him, in the order of their births or deaths. ”

“ And 169 yet, such is the irony of circumstance, Priestley’s name mainly lives as that of a chemical philosopher. When men have desired to do him honour, and have sought to perpetuate his memory by statues in public places, he is generally represented as making a chemical experiment. In reality, great as Priestley’s merit is as an experimentarian philosopher, his greater claim on our regard and esteem rests upon his struggles and his sufferings in the cause of civil, political and religious liberty. ”

“ That the parents and friends of young gentlemen destined to act in any of these important spheres may not think a liberal education unnecessary to them, and that the young gentlemen themselves may enter with spirit into the enlarged views of their friends and tutors, I would humbly propose some new articles of academical instruction, such as have a nearer and more evident connection with the business of active life, and which may therefore bid fairer to engage the attention and rouse the thinking powers of young gentlemen of an active genius. ”

“ By some strange irony of fate this man, who was by nature one of the most peaceable and peace-loving of men, singularly calm and dispassionate, not prone to disputation or given to wrangling, acquired the reputation of being perhaps the most cantankerous man of his time, who delighted in tilting against established usage, and whose hand, Ishmael-like, was against every man’s. ”

“ Priestley’s connection with the Society influenced the progress of chemistry in this country both directly and indirectly. As already stated, he himself was greatly stimulated to accumulate chemical facts by his association with men like Boulton, Watt, Wedgwood, Keir, Darwin, who loved knowledge for its own sake, but who were at the same time quite alive to the material benefits which they and their fellow-men might derive from the pursuit of scientific inquiry. ”

“ No example of Priestley’s abilities as a “versifier” has come down to us, but in that dainty little sketch of the Warrington society, by Miss Lucy Aikin, from which we have already quoted, allusion is made to his accomplishment.
“Both bouts rimés and vers de société were in fashion with the set. Once it was their custom to slip anonymous pieces into Mrs Priestley’s work-bag. One ‘copy of verses,’ a very eloquent one, puzzled all guessers a long time; at length it was traced to Dr Priestley’s self.” ”

“ The years which Priestley spent at Calne constitute the most fruitful period of his scientific career. Practically all that he did in the way of solid achievement and of addition to the armoury of science was effected during that time. Although, after leaving Lord Shelburne, he continued to pursue scientific inquiry with his wonted zeal and industry, doubtless adding thereby to his fame among his contemporaries, posterity has set the true measure of appreciation to his later efforts. He doubtless made many hundreds of experiments in connection with more or less well-defined trains of inquiry ”

“ Priestley set out on his career with the highest ideal of his calling; indeed to him the office of a Christian minister was the most honourable of any on earth, and he had no other ambition than to distinguish himself by his application to the studies proper to that profession. That he laboured unselfishly and with no idea of place and preferment is certain from the circumstance that he suffered from a physical disability which he must have recognised could not but tell strongly against his chance of worldly success. ”

“ If extensive and lasting fame be at all an object, literary, and especially scientifical, pursuits are preferable to political ones in a variety of respects.... If extensive usefulness be the object, science has the same advantage over politics. The greatest success in the latter seldom extends farther than one particular country and one particular age, whereas a successful pursuit of science makes a man the benefactor of all mankind and of every age. How trifling is the fame of any statesman that this country has ever produced to that of Lord Bacon, of Newton, or of Boyle ”

“ As a philosopher he clearly saw defects in the most perfect of human institutions, and expressed himself with a boldness and freedom which alarmed the neighbouring clergy of the 124 Established Church, and excited their resentment. The labouring classes in Birmingham certainly looked upon him as a disaffected and dangerous man. Incapable of deep reflection themselves, they abhorred his Unitarian principles as subversive of Christianity, and the idea that the Church was in danger was propagated among them by men of deeper discernment, who wished to render Dr Priestley odious and unpopular. ”

“ In this state of things the only advantage will be on the side of industry and ingenuity, and no man or nation ought to wish it to be anywhere else.”
With regard to questions of political and civil liberty, the theory of the progress of law, the influence of religion on civil society, the connection of modes of religion with forms of government, the teaching is precisely what we should expect in such a hot-bed of liberal dissent as the Warrington Academy. ”

“ For your encouragement there is a new book to be cut up, and it is to be determined whether or not heat is a compound of phlogiston and empyreal air, and whether a mirror can reflect the heat of the fire. I give you a friendly warning that you may be found wanting whichever opinion you adopt in the latter question, therefore be cautious. If you are meek and humble, perhaps you may be told what light is made of, and also how to make it, and the theory proved both by synthesis and analysis. ”

“ Priestley’s action, and more especially the catholicity he displayed in the selection and admission of such books as in his judgment tended to the spread of rationalism, whether in religion or in politics, drew down upon him the wrath of the Court party, and more particularly of the beneficed clergy of the town and district, and the library was vigorously denounced as “a fountain of erroneous opinions, spreading infidelity, heresy and schism through the whole neighbourhood.”
This catholicity is reflected in almost every circumstance of his daily life. ”

“ On the way out he wrote some Observations on the Cause of the Present Prevalence of Infidelity, which he prefixed to a new edition of his Letters to the Philosophers and Politicians of France.
Alas! one of the most distinguished of those philosophers and politicians was even then no more. Coffinhal had pronounced his judgment, declaring “the Republic has no need of men of science,” and whilst Priestley was on the high seas his great protagonist, Lavoisier, more unfortunate even than he, met his death on the scaffold. ”

“ Birth—Parentage—Home Life—Early Education
“If,” says Mr Frederic Harrison, “we choose one man as a type of the intellectual energy of the eighteenth century we could hardly find a better than Joseph Priestley, though his was not the greatest mind of the century. His versatility, eagerness, activity and humanity; the immense range of his curiosity in all things, physical, moral or social; his place in science, in theology, in philosophy and in politics; his peculiar relation to the Revolution, and the pathetic story of his unmerited sufferings, may make him the hero of the eighteenth century.” ”

“ Though exportation makes a nation rich, we are not to judge of the quantity of riches which a nation gains by trade from exportation only, but the importation must also be considered. If these exactly balance one another nothing can be said to be gained or lost, just as a person is not the richer for selling a quantity of goods if he buy to the same amount. ”

“ These halcyon days were, however, but as the calm before the storm, and the contented and happy 122 philosopher had soon need of all his philosophy, and of all his Christianity too, in face of the ungoverned fury of the mob which, to use Wedgwood’s words, swept like a hurricane over him and his friends.
The 14th of July 1791—the anniversary of the French Revolution—was celebrated in several towns in England without interruption or any untoward circumstance; that day, however, was long remembered by the inhabitants of Birmingham with feelings akin to horror. ”