Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/755

PRIESTLEY 731 were Dr Ashworth of conservative and the Rev. Samuel Clark of decidedly liberal tendencies. Priestley s specula tions at this time were philosophical rather than scientific. Under the influence of Hartley s Observations on Man and Collins s Philosophical Enquiry he exchanged his early Calvinism for a system of " necessarianism," that is, he learned to hold that the invariable connexion of cause and effect is as inviolable in the moral as in the material world. During these early years he began his enormous industry as a writer, and in particular laid down the lines of his Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion. From Daventry he went in 1755, at twenty-two years of age, to take charge of a small congregation at Needham Market in Suffolk. This church was halting between Presbyterianism and Independency, being subsidized by both. Priestley insisted on dropping the Independent con nexion. As a consequence he had to content himself with a salary of <30, and succeeded in living on less. His studies had not in the least chilled his devotion to the sacred work, which indeed to the end of his life he counted his highest honour. He was diligent in preaching and teaching, but his intellectual freedom, together with a physical difficulty in speech, prevented his attaining popularity. To cure the defect in speech he paid twenty guineas, given by his aunt, to a London specialist or quack. But this difficulty turned out to be as irremediable as his intellectual unconformability ; and the only per manent advantage derived from his visit to the metropolis was an introduction to various scholars of the day, such as Dr Price, also Dr Benson and Dr Kippis, friends of Lardner. Later on he made the acquaintance of the last also through some manuscript notes on the doctrine of atonement, which attracted the great scholar s attention. In 1758 Priestley removed to Nantwich, obtaining a more congenial congregation ; and there he established a school, which increased his income but lessened his literary activity. Always bringing his best intelligence to bear on everything he undertook, he varied his element ary lessons with instruction in natural philosophy, illus trated by experiments, for which he could now afford the needful instruments. "These," he says, "I taught my scholars in the highest class to keep in order, and to make use of ; and by entertaining their parents and friends with experiments, in which the scholars were generally the operators, and sometimes the lecturers too, I con siderably extended the reputation of my school." Up to this time his studies had been entirely literary and theologico-philosophical. It is noteworthy that his efforts to liberalize education turned his attention to science. He was probably one of the very first teachers to appreciate the importance of physical science to early culture. In 1761 he was appointed classical tutor in a Noncon formist academy, then recently established at Warrington on the same liberal principles as the institution at Daventry. En this position he passed six of his happiest years, pursuing his scientific studies, especially in chemistry and electricity, enjoying congenial intercourse with Dr Turner of Liverpool, also with Wedgwood s partner Mr Bentley, Dr Enfield, and various Manchester men whose sons or grandsons helped to form the " Manchester school." In 1762 he married the daughter of Mr Isaac Wilkinson, an ironmaster of Wrexham. At Warrington Priestley received the complimentary degree of LL.D. from Edinburgh, apparently in recognition of his Chart of History. On a visit to London he made the acquaintance of Dr Franklin, and his researches in electricity procured his election to the Royal Society in 1766. In the following year (1767) Dr Priestley removed to Leeds to take charge of Mill Hill chapel ; and in the same year was published his History of Electricity, a work suggested by Dr Franklin, and contributing greatly to the author s fame. Now, however, he turned once more to speculative theology, and surrendered the Arianism he had hitherto loosely held, adopting instead definite Socinian views. In addition to preaching and teaching diligently in his congregation he carried on his chemical researches with results considered at the time startling. Chemistry Avas hardly in its infancy ; it was unborn. " The vast science," says Mr Huxley, "which now passes under that name had no existence." Living next door to a brewery Dr Priestley amused himself with experiments on the " fixed air " (carbonic acid) produced there, and succeeded in forcing it into water. Thus commenced his researches on "different kinds of air," remarkable rather for the impulse they gave to controversy and experiment than for any mature scientific results. He had a keen instinct for surmise, but no adequate method of research and verification. On this point Roscoe and Schorlemmer observe in their treatise on Chemistry (vol. i. p. 18) that "Priestley s notion of original research, which seems quite foreign to our present ideas, may be excused, perhaps justified by the state of science in his day. He believed that all discoveries are made by chance, and he compares the investigation of nature to a hound, wildly running after, and here and there chancing on game (or, as James Watt called it, his random haphazarding ), whilst we would rather be disposed to compare the man of science to the sportsman, who having, after persistent effort, laid out a distinct plan of operations, makes reasonably sure of his quarry." At this time also he wrote various political tracts and papers, always in favour of popular rights, and in particular hostile to the attitude of the Government towards the American colonies. In 1771 he was nearly appointed to accompany Captain Cook to the South Seas. But the Government of the day was shocked at the idea of giving official position to a Socinian minister, and Priestley was disappointed. Shortly afterwards he accepted the somewhat anomalous situation of " literary companion " and librarian to Lord Shelburne. With this nobleman he travelled in Holland and Germany, returning by Paris, where he spent a month in 1774. The position gave him ample leisure for his scientific and literary pursuits. But on the completion of his most noteworthy philosophical treatise, Disquisitions on Matter and Spirit, the connexion was dissolved. It has been surmised that the patron feared to share the unpopularity of his client s views. Those views Priestley himself con sidered to be " materialistic." It is a question of words. Seeing that he denied impenetrability to matter, it is difficult to say why the substance he left might not as well be called spirit as anything else. In 1780 he removed to Birmingham, where he enjoyed the friendship of James Watt and his partner Boulton, also of Dr Darwin, grandfather of the illustrious man in whom the honours of the name culminated. Here Dr Priestley again took charge of a congregation, and resumed his theological efforts in a controversy with the bishop of Waterford, and in a laborious History of the Corruptions of Christianity. But bad times were at hand. The French Revolution excited passionate controversy, and Priestley was naturally on the side of the revolutionists. In 1791 the anniversary of the capture of the Bastille was observed in Birmingham by a dinner at which he was not present, and with which he had nothing to do. But the mob wished to testify by some signal deed their abhorrence of the un-English notions propounded at the dinner, and there fore burned down Priestley s chapel and house. Before the deed was done they waded knee deep in torn manu scripts, and amused themselves with futile efforts to make

an electric machine avenge its owner s impiety by firing