JOSEPH, LL.D., F.R.S. and member of many foreign literary societies, was born on the 24th of March 1733, at Field-head, in the parish of Birstall, in the west riding of Yorkshire. His father was a cloth manufacturer, and both his parents were respectable among Calvinistic dissenters. A strong desire for reading was one of the first passions which this philosopher exhibited, and which probably induced his parents and friends to change their mind respecting his destination, and instead of a tradesman, to fit him for some learned profession. He acquired a knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, in the school of an eminent teacher at Bartley, and at the age of 19 became a theological student in the academy of Daventry. When about the age of twenty-two he was made choice of to be assistant minister to the Independent congregation of Needham-market, in Suffolk. Having stayed at Needham for about three years, he received an invitation to be pastor of a small flock at Nantwich, in Cheshire, of which he accepted. Here he opened a day-school, in the management of which he displayed that turn for research, and that spirit of improvement, which were afterwards destined to be such prominent features of his character. His reputation as a man of extraordinary talents and diligent enquiry soon spread among his professional brethren, and when Dr Aikin was chosen to succeed the reverend Dr Taylor as tutor in divinity at Warrington, the vacant department of belles lettres was assigned to Mr Priestley.
His literary career may probably be said to have commenced at Warrington; and the extent, as well as the originality of his pursuits, were soon announced to the world by a variety of valuable publications. Much of his attention about this period was taken up with general politics, on which he delivered a number of lectures. Although it was reasonable to think that his time would be sufficiently occupied by his academical and literary employments, yet his unwearied activity and industry found Priestley found means to accomplish the first great work in philosophy which laid a solid foundation for his future fame.
Having long amused himself with an electrical machine, and felt himself interested in the progress of discovery in that branch of physics, he undertook a history of electricity, with an account of its present state. This work made its first appearance at Warrington in the year 1767, which was so well received by the learned world, that it went through a fifth edition in 4to in the year 1794. It is justly deemed a valuable performance, and its original experiments are allowed to be very ingenious.
About the year 1768, he was chosen pastor of a large and respectable congregation of Protestant dissenters at Leeds, which made him turn a very large share of his attention to theological subjects. His mind is said to have been strongly impressed with sentiments of piety and devotion from a child; and though he changed most of those religious sentiments in which he had been instructed, for such as he regarded to be more rational and consistent with truth, his piety and devotion never deserted him.
He was at the head of the modern Unitarians, whose leading tenet is the proper humanity of Christ, confining every species of religious worship and adoration to the one supreme. Some, we believe, have charged him with a design to subvert the Christian religion; but such an insinuation argues a total want of candour, as zeal for Christianity, as a divine dispensation, and the most valuable of all gifts bestowed upon the human race, was his ruling passion.
His History and Present state of Discoveries relating to Vision, Light, and Colours, appeared in 1772, in two vols. 4to. This is allowed to be a performance of great merit, having a lucid arrangement; but it did not bring him such a large share of popularity as his History of Electricity, as it is probable that he was scarcely qualified to explain the abstruser parts of the science. In the year 1770, he quitted Leeds for a situation entirely different. His philosophical writings, and the recommendation of Dr Price had made him so favourably known to the earl of Shelburne, that this nobleman made him such advantageous proposals for residing with him, that a regard for his family would not permit them to be rejected. The domestic tuition of Lord Shelburne's sons having been previously committed to a man of merit, they received no instructions from Dr Priestley farther than some courses of experimental philosophy. He also attended his lordship in a visit to Paris, where he had an opportunity of seeing some of the most celebrated men of science in that country, whom he astonished by afflicting a firm belief in revealed religion, which had been presented to their minds in such colours, that they thought no man of sense could hesitate in rejecting it as an idle fable.
In 1775, he published his examination of Dr Reid on the Human Mind; Dr Beattie on the Nature and Immutability of Truth; and Dr Oswald's Appeal to Common Sense. The design of this volume was to refute the new doctrine of common sense, employed as the test of truth by the metaphysicians of Scotland. He never intentionally misrepresented either the arguments or purposes of an opponent; but he measured the respect with which he treated him by that which he felt for him in his own mind. In the year 1777, he published his disquisitions relating to Matter and Spirit, in which he gave a history of the philosophical doctrine respecting the soul, and openly supported the material system, which makes it homogeneous with the body. This subjected him to more odium than any of his other opinions. As he materialized spirit, so he in some measure spiritualized matter, by affixing to it penetrability and some other subtle qualities. About the same period he became the champion of philosophical necessity; a doctrine not less obnoxious to many, on account of its supposed effects on morality, than the former. So astonishing was the versatility of his mind, that he at the same time carried on that course of discovery concerning aeriform bodies, which has rendered his name so illustrious among philosophical chemists. A second volume was published in 1775, and a third in 1777. Some of his most memorable discoveries were those of nitrous and deplogisticated or pure air; of the restoration of vitiated air by vegetation; of the influence of light on vegetables, and of the effects of respiration on the blood.
The name of Priestley was by these means spread through the countries of Europe, and honours were heaped upon him from scientific bodies in various parts. The term of his engagement with Lord Shelburne having expired, Dr Priestley was at liberty to choose a new situation for himself, retiring with a pension for life of £50l. a-year. He chose the vicinity of the populous town of Birmingham, as it was the residence of several men of science, such as Watt, Withering, Bolton, and Keir, whose names are well known to the public. Here he was invited to become pastor of a dissenting congregation, of which he accepted about the latter end of the year 1780. Soon after this appeared his Letters to Bishop Newcome, on the Duration of Christ's Ministry, and his History of the Corruptions of Christianity, which were afterwards followed by his History of Early Opinions.
He displayed his attachment to freedom by his Essay on the First Principles of Government; and by an anonymous pamphlet on the State of Public Liberty in this country; and had shown a warm interest in the cause of America at the time of its unfortunate quarrel with the mother country.
The celebration of the anniversary of the destruction of the Bastile, by a public dinner, on July 14th 1791, at which Dr Priestley was not present, gave the signal of those riots which have thrown lasting infamy on the town of Birmingham, and in some degree on the national character. Amidst burning houses of worship and private dwellings, Dr Priestley was the great object of popular rage; his house, library, manuscripts, and apparatus, were made a prey to the flames; he was hunted like a criminal, and experienced not only the furious outrages of a mob, but the most unhandsome treatment from some who ought to have sustained the parts of gentlemen, and the friends of good order. He now lay under a load of public odium and suspicion, and he was constantly harassed by the petty malignity of bigotry.
It was of consequence not to be wondered at, that he looked for an asylum in a country to which he had always shewn a friendly attachment, and which he supposed was in possession of all the blessings of civil and religious liberty. In the year 1794, he took leave of Priestley, his native country, and embarked for North America.
He took up his residence in Northumberland, a town in the interior of the state of Pennsylvania, which he selected on account of the purchase of landed property in its neighbourhood; otherwise its remoteness from the sea-ports, its want of many of the comforts of life, and of all the helps to scientific pursuit, rendered it a peculiarly undesirable abode for one of Dr Priestley's habits and employments. The loss of his amiable wife, and of a most promising son, as well as repeated attacks of diffease, severely tried the fortitude and resignation of this great and good man.
In America he was received with general respect, and the angry contests of party were not able wholly to deprive him of the esteem due to his character. He was heard as a preacher by some of the most distinguished members of congress; and he was offered, but declined, the place of chemical professor of Philadelphia. It became his great object to enable himself in his retirement at Northumberland to renew that course of philosophical experiment, and especially that train of theological writing, which had occupied so many of the best years of his life. By numerous experiments on the constitution of airs, he became more and more fixed in his belief of the phlogistic theory, and in his opposition to the new French chemical system, of which he lived to be the only opponent of any celebrity. By the liberal contributions of his friends in England, he was enabled to commence the printing of two extensive works, on which he was zealously bent, a Church History, and an Exposition of the Scriptures; and through the progress of his final decline he unremittingly urged their completion.
An article in the Philadelphia Gazette speaks of him in the following honourable terms:
"Since his illness at Philadelphia, in the year 1801, he never regained his former good state of health. His complaint was constant indigestion, and a difficulty of swallowing food of any kind. But during this period of general debility, he was busily employed in printing his Church History, and in the first volume of his notes on the Scriptures, and in making new and original experiments. During this period, likewise, he wrote his pamphlet of Jesus and Socrates compared, and reprinted his Essay on Phlogiston.
"From about the beginning of November, 1803, to the middle of January, 1804, his complaint grew more serious; yet, by judicious medical treatment, and strict attention to diet, he, after some time, seemed, if not gaining strength, at least not getting worse; and his friends fondly hoped that his health would continue to improve as the season advanced. He, however, considered his life as very precarious. Even at this time, besides his miscellaneous reading, which was at all times very extensive, he read through all the works quoted in his Comparison of the different Systems of Grecian Philosophers with Christianity; composed that work, and transcribed the whole of it in less than three months; so that he has left it ready for the press.
"In the last fortnight of January, his fits of indigestion became more alarming, his legs swelled, and his weakness increased. Within two days of his death he became so weak, that he could walk but a little way, and that with great difficulty. He was fully sensible that he had not long to live, yet talked with cheerfulness to all who called on him. He dwelt upon the peculiarly happy situation in which it had pleased the divine Being to place him in life, and the great advantage he had enjoyed in the acquaintance and friendship of some of the best and wisest men of the age in which he lived, and the satisfaction he derived from having led an useful as well as happy life. On the 9th of February 1804, he breathed his last, so easily, that those who were fitting close to him did not immediately perceive it. He had put his hand to his face, which prevented them from observing it."
In the constitution of Dr Priestley's mind ardour and vivacity of intellect were united with a mild and placid temper. With a zeal for the propagation of truth which nothing could subdue, he joined a calm patience, an unruffled serenity, which rendered him proof against disappointments. The rights of private judgment were rendered sacred to him by every principle of his understanding, and his heart would not have suffered him to injure his bitterest enemy. He was naturally disposed to be cheerful, and when his mind was not occupied with serious thoughts, could unbend with playful ease and negligence, in the private circle of friends. He commonly spoke little in large and mixed companies, and in the domestic relations of life was uniformly kind and affectionate. His parental feelings were those of the tenderest and best of fathers. Not even malice itself could ever fix a stain on his private conduct, or impeach his integrity.