[5] Even Mrs. Priestley, who might be forgiven for
regarding the destroyers of her household gods with
some asperity, contents herself, in writing to Mrs.
Barbauld, with the sarcasm that the Birmingham people
“will scarcely find so many respectable characters,
a second time, to make a bonfire of.”
[6] Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds
of Air, vol. ii. p. 31.
[7] Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds
of Air, vol. ii. pp. 34, 35.
[8] Ibid. vol. i. p. 40.
[9] Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds
of Air, vol. ii. p. 48.
[10] Ibid. p. 55.
[11] Ibid. p. 60. The italics are Priestley’s
own.
[12] “In all the newspapers and most of the
periodical publications I was represented as an unbeliever
in Revelation, and no better than an atheist.”—Autobiography,
Rutt, vol i. p. 124. “On the walls of houses,
etc., and especially where I usually went, were
to be seen, in large characters, ’MADAN FOR
EVER; DAMN PRIESTLEY; NO PRESBYTERIANISM; DAMN THE
PRESBYTERIANS,’ etc., etc.; and, at
one time, I was followed by a number of boys, who
left their play, repeating what they had seen on the
walls, and shouting out, ’Damn Priestley;
damn him, damn him, for ever, for ever,’
etc., etc. This was no doubt a lesson
which they had been taught by their parents, and what
they, I fear, had learned from their superiors.”—Appeal
to the Public on the Subject of the Riots at Birmingham.
[13] First Series. On Some of the Peculiarities
of the Christian Religion. Essay I.
“Revelation of a Future State.”
[14] Not only is Priestley at one with Bishop Courtenay
in this matter, but with Hartley and Bonnet, both
of them stout champions of Christianity. Moreover,
Archbishop Whately’s essay is little better
than an expansion of the first paragraph of Hume’s
famous essay on the Immortality of the Soul:—“By
the mere light of reason it seems difficult to prove
the immortality of the soul; the arguments for it
are commonly derived either from metaphysical topics,
or moral, or physical. But it is in reality the
Gospel, and the Gospel alone, that has brought life
and immortality to light.” It is impossible
to imagine that a man of Whately’s tastes and
acquirements had not read Hume or Hartley, though
he refers to neither.
[15] Essay on the First Principles of Government,
Second edition, 1771.
[16] “Utility of Establishments,” in Essay
on First Principles of Government, 1771.
[17] In 1732 Doddridge was cited for teaching without
the Bishop’s leave, at Northampton.
ON THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES
[1854]
The subject to which I have to beg your attention
during the ensuing hour is “The Relation of
Physiological Science to other branches of Knowledge.”
