[1874]
If the man to perpetuate whose memory we have this
day raised a statue had been asked on what part of
his busy life’s work he set the highest value,
he would undoubtedly have pointed to his voluminous
contributions to theology. In season and out of
season, he was the steadfast champion of that hypothesis
respecting the Divine nature which is termed Unitarianism
by its friends and Socinianism by its foes. Regardless
of odds, he was ready to do battle with all comers
in that cause; and if no adversaries entered the lists,
he would sally forth to seek them.
To this, his highest ideal of duty, Joseph Priestley
sacrificed the vulgar prizes of life, which, assuredly,
were within easy reach of a man of his singular energy
and varied abilities. For this object he put
aside, as of secondary importance, those scientific
investigations which he loved so well, and in which
he showed himself so competent to enlarge the boundaries
of natural knowledge and to win fame. In this
cause he not only cheerfully suffered obloquy from
the bigoted and the unthinking, and came within sight
of martyrdom; but bore with that which is much harder
to be borne than all these, the unfeigned astonishment
and hardly disguised contempt of a brilliant society,
composed of men whose sympathy and esteem must have
been most dear to him, and to whom it was simply incomprehensible
that a philosopher should seriously occupy himself
with any form of Christianity.
It appears to me that the man who, setting before
himself such an ideal of life, acted up to it consistently,
is worthy of the deepest respect, whatever opinion
may be entertained as to the real value of the tenets
which he so zealously propagated and defended.
But I am sure that I speak not only for myself, but
for all this assemblage, when I say that our purpose
to-day is to do honour, not to Priestley, the Unitarian
divine, but to Priestley, the fearless defender of
rational freedom in thought and in action: to
Priestley, the philosophic thinker; to that Priestley
who held a foremost place among “the swift runners
who hand over the lamp of life,” [1] and transmit
from one generation to another the fire kindled, in
the childhood of the world, at the Promethean altar
of Science.
The main incidents of Priestley’s life are so
well known that I need dwell upon them at no great
length.
Born in 1733, at Fieldhead, near Leeds, and brought
up among Calvinists of the straitest orthodoxy, the
boy’s striking natural ability led to his being
devoted to the profession of a minister of religion;
and, in 1752, he was sent to the Dissenting Academy
at Daventry—an institution which authority
left undisturbed, though its existence contravened
the law. The teachers under whose instruction
and influence the young man came at Daventry, carried
out to the letter the injunction to “try all
