Part 1

MEMOIRS

OF

JOSEPH PRIESTLEY, L. L. D. F. R. S. &c.

MEMOIRS

OF

Dr. Joseph Priestley,

TO THE YEAR 1795,

_WRITTEN BY HIMSELF_:

WITH A CONTINUATION, TO THE TIME OF HIS DECEASE,

BY HIS SON, JOSEPH PRIESTLEY:

_AND OBSERVATIONS ON HIS WRITINGS_,

BY THOMAS COOPER, PRESIDENT JUDGE OF THE

4TH. DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA: AND THE

REV. WILLIAM CHRISTIE.

NORTHUMBERLAND: _PRINTED BY JOHN BINNS_.

1806.

_District of Pennsylvania, to wit_:

Be it remembered, that on the twenty-eighth of December in the thirtieth year of the Independence of the United States of America, A. D. 1805, Joseph Priestley, of the said district, hath deposited in this Office the Title of a Book, the right whereof he claims as Proprietor, in the Words following, to wit:

“Memoirs of Dr. Joseph Priestley, to the year 1795, written by himself, with a continuation, to the time of his decease, by his Son Joseph Priestley, and observations on his writings, by Thomas Cooper, President Judge of the 4th district of Pennsylvania, and the Rev. William Christie.”

In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, intitled “An Act for the encouragement of learning by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned.” And also to the Act entitled “An Act supplementary to an Act entitled “An Act for the encouragement of learning by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned.”” And extending the benefits, thereof to the Arts of designing, engraving, and etching, historical and other prints.

D. CALDWELL, _Clerk of the District of Pennsylvania_.

TABLE OF CONTENTS,

OF

VOLUME I.

PREFACE, PAGE i

Memoirs with Notes, 1

Continuation of the Memoirs, 129

Appendix No. I. An Account of Dr. Priestley’s Discoveries in Chemistry, and of his writings on that, and other Scientific subjects, 223

-- -- No. 2 An Account of his Metaphysical writings, 294

PREFACE.

My father, Dr. Priestley, having taken the trouble of writing down the principal occurrences of his life, to the period of his arrival in this country, that account is now presented to the public in the state in which he left it, one or two trifling alterations excepted. The simple unaffected manner in which it is written, will be deemed, I have no doubt, far more interesting, than if the narrative itself had been made the text of a more laboured composition.

Independent of the desire, so universal among mankind, to know somewhat of the private as well as the public history of those who have made themselves eminent among their fellow citizens, the life of my father is likely to be more useful as well as more interesting than those of the generality of literary men; not only as it is an account of great industry combined with great abilities, successfully exerted for the extension of human improvement, but because it affords a striking proof of the value of rational Christianity, adopted upon mature reflection and practiced with habitual perseverance.

Few men have had to struggle for so many years with circumstances more straitened and precarious than my father; few men have ventured to attack so many or such inveterate prejudices respecting the prevalent religion of his country, or have advanced bolder or more important opinions in opposition to the courtly politics of the powers that be; few have had to encounter more able opponents in his literary career, or have been exposed to such incessant and vindictive obloquy, from men of every description, in return for his unremitting exertions in the cause of truth; yet none have more uniformly proceeded with a single eye, regardless of consequences, to act as his conviction impelled him, and his conscience dictated. His conduct brought with it its own reward, reputation and respect from the most eminent of his contemporaries, the affectionate attachment of most valuable friends, and a cheerfulness of disposition arising in part from conscious rectitude which no misfortunes could long repress. But to me it seems, that conscious rectitude alone would hardly, of itself, have been able to support him under some of the afflictions he was doomed to bear. He had a farther resource, to him never failing and invaluable, a firm persuasion of the benevolence of the Almighty towards all his creatures, and the conviction that every part of his own life, like every part of the whole system, was preordained for the best upon the whole of existence. Had he entertained the gloomy notions of Calvinism in which he was brought up, this cheering source of contentment and resignation would probably have failed him, and irritation and despondency would have gained an unhappy ascendancy. But by him the deity was not regarded as an avenging tyrant, punishing, for the sake of punishing his weak and imperfect creatures, but as a wise and kind parent, inflicting those corrections only that are necessary to bring our dispositions to the proper temper, and to fit us for the highest state of happiness of which our natures are ultimately capable.

With these views of the present and the future, it is no wonder that he submitted with perfect resignation to the inevitable vicissitudes of human life, and looked forward to futurity, as a period of existence when his capacity for receiving happiness would be greater because his capacity for communicating it would be enlarged.

My father’s narrative closing with his arrival in this country, where he has done so much for the promotion of useful knowledge of all kinds, I have compleated the account of his life from that period to the termination of it. The Notes have been added to the narrative as desireable illustrations of the passages to which they refer.

I have likewise thought it proper to add a review of my father’s literary labours, in order to give the reader a knowledge of his opinions on many important subjects, likewise, of the share in the increase of human knowledge, which may be justly ascribed to his exertions. The Appendices giving an account of his Chemical, Philosophical, Metaphysical, Political and Miscellaneous writings, as well as the Summary of his religious opinions, are written by my friend Judge Cooper, formerly of Manchester in England. For the Appendix containing an analysis of my father’s Theological writings, I am indebted to the Rev. W. Christie, formerly of Montrose in Scotland.

The work might have been made more interesting as well as entertaining, had I deemed myself at liberty to have published letters addressed to my father by persons of eminence in this country, as well as in Europe. But those communications that were intended to be private, shall remain so; as I do not think I have a right to amuse the public either against, or without, the inclinations of those who confided their correspondence to his care.

I regret, that more of the present work is not the production of my father’s pen; and I hope the reader will make allowance for the imperfection of that portion of it, for which I have made myself responsible.

JOSEPH PRIESTLEY.

NORTHUMBERLAND, PENNSYLVANIA, May 1st, 1805.

_MEMOIRS_

OF

DR. JOSEPH PRIESTLEY.

[WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.]

Having thought it right to leave behind me some account of my _friends_ and _benefactors_, it is in a manner necessary that I also give some account of _myself_; and as the like has been done by many persons, and for reasons which posterity has approved, I make no farther apology for following their example. If my writings in general have been useful to my cotemporaries, I hope that this account of myself will not be without its use to those who may come after me, and especially in promoting virtue and piety, which I hope I may say it has been my care to practice myself, as it has been my business to inculcate them upon others.

My father, Jonas Priestley, was the youngest son of Joseph Priestley, a maker and dresser of woollen cloth. His first wife, my mother, was the only child of Joseph Swift, a farmer at Shafton, a village about six miles south east of Wakefield. By this wife he had six children, four sons and two daughters. I, the oldest, was born on the thirteenth of March, old style 1733, at Fieldhead about six miles south west of Leeds in Yorkshire. My mother dying in 1740, my father married again in 1745, and by his second wife had three daughters.

My mother having children so fast, I was very soon committed to the care of her father, and with him I continued with little interruption till my mother’s death.

It is but little that I can recollect of my mother. I remember, however, that she was careful to teach me the Assembly’s Catechism, and to give me the best instructions the little time that I was at home. Once in particular, when I was playing with a pin, she asked me where I got it; and on telling her that I found it at my uncle’s, who lived very near to my father, and where I had been playing with my cousins, she made me carry it back again; no doubt to impress my mind, as it could not fail to do, with a clear idea of the distinction of property, and of the importance of attending to it. She died in the hard winter of 1739, not long after being delivered of my youngest brother; and having dreamed a little before her death that she was in a delightful place, which she particularly described, and imagined to be heaven, the last words she spake, as my aunt informed me, were “Let me go to that fine place.”

On the death of my mother I was taken home, my brothers taking my place, and was sent to school in the neighbourhood. But being without a mother, and my father incumbered with a large family, a sister of my father’s, in the year 1742, relieved him of all care of me, by taking me entirely to herself, and considering me as her child, having none of her own. From this time she was truly a parent to me till her death in 1764.

My aunt was married to a Mr. Keighly, a man who had distinguished himself for his zeal for religion and for his public spirit. He was also a man of considerable property, and dying soon after I went to them, left the greatest part of his fortune to my aunt for life, and much of it at her disposal after her death.

By this truly pious and excellent woman, who knew no other use of wealth, or of talents of any kind, than to do good, and who never spared herself for this purpose, I was sent to several schools in the neighbourhood, especially to a large free school, under the care of a clergyman, Mr. Hague, under whom, at the age of twelve or fifteen, I first began to make any progress in the Latin Tongue, and acquired the elements of Greek. But about the same time that I began to learn Greek at this public school, I learned Hebrew on holidays of the dissenting minister of the place, Mr. Kirkby, and upon the removal of Mr. Hague from the free school, Mr. Kirkby opening a school of his own, I was wholly under his care. With this instruction I had acquired a pretty good knowledge of the learned languages at the age of sixteen. But from this time Mr. Kirkby’s increasing infirmities obliged him to relinquish his school, and beginning to be of a weakly consumptive habit, so that it was not thought adviseable to send me to any other place of education, I was left to conduct my studies as well as I could till I went to the academy at Daventry in the year 1752.

From the time I discovered any fondness for books my aunt entertained hopes of my being a minister, and I readily entered into her views. But my ill health obliged me to turn my thoughts another way, and with a view to trade, I learned the modern languages, French, Italian, and High Dutch without a master; and in the first and last of them I translated, and wrote letters, for an uncle of mine who was a merchant, and who intended to put me into a counting house in Lisbon. A house was actually engaged to receive me there, and every thing was nearly ready for my undertaking the voyage. But getting better health my former destination for the ministry was resumed, and I was sent to Daventry, to study under Mr. Ashworth, afterwards Dr. Ashworth.

Looking back, as I often do, upon this period of my life, I see the greatest reason to be thankful to God for the pious care of my parents and friends, in giving me religious instruction. My mother was a woman of exemplary piety, and my father also had a strong sense of religion, praying with his family morning and evening, and carefully teaching his children and servants the Assembly’s Catechism, which was all the system of which he had any knowledge. In the latter part of his life he became very fond of Mr. Whitfield’s writings, and other works of a similar kind, having been brought up in the principles of Calvinism, and adopting them, but without ever giving much attention to matters of speculation, and entertaining no bigotted aversion to those who differed from him on the subject.

The same was the case with my excellent aunt, she was truly Calvinistic in principle, but was far from confining salvation to those who thought as she did on religious subjects. Being left in good circumstances, her home was the resort of all the dissenting ministers in the neighbourhood without distinction, and those who were the most obnoxious on account of their heresy were almost as welcome to her, if she thought them honest and good men, (which she was not unwilling to do) as any others.

The most heretical ministers in the neighbourhood were Mr. Graham of Halifax, and Mr. Walker of Leeds, but they were frequently my Aunt’s guests. With the former of these my intimacy grew with my years, but chiefly after I became a preacher. We kept up a correspondence to the last, thinking alike on most subjects. To him I dedicated my _Disquisitions on Matter and Spirit_, and when he died, he left me his manuscripts, his Polyglot bible, and two hundred pounds. Besides being a rational Christian, he was an excellent classical scholar, and wrote Latin with great facility and elegance. He frequently wrote to me in that language.

Thus I was brought up with sentiments of piety, but without bigotry, and having from my earliest years given much attention to the subject of religion, I was as much confirmed as I well could be in the principles of Calvinism, all the books that came in my way having that tendency.

The weakness of my constitution, which often led me to think that I should not be long lived, contributed to give my mind a still more serious turn, and having read many books of _experiences_, and in consequence believing that a _new birth_ produced by the immediate agency of the Spirit of God, was necessary to salvation, and not being able to satisfy myself that I _had_ experienced any thing of the kind, I felt occasionally such distress of mind as it is not in my power to describe, and which I still look back upon with horror. Notwithstanding I had nothing very material to reproach myself with, I often concluded that God had forsaken me, and that mine was like the case of Francis Spira, to whom, as he imagined, repentance and salvation were denied. In that state of mind I remember reading the account of the man in the iron cage in the Pilgrim’s Progress with the greatest perturbation.

I imagine that even these conflicts of mind were not without their use, as they led me to think habitually of God and a future state. And though my feelings were then, no doubt, too full of terror, what remained of them was a deep reverence for divine things, and in time a pleasing satisfaction which can never be effaced, and I hope, was strengthened as I have advanced in life, and acquired more rational notions of religion. The remembrance, however, of what I sometimes felt in that state of ignorance and darkness gives me a peculiar sense of the value of rational principles of religion, and of which I can give but an imperfect description to others.

As _truth_, we cannot doubt, must have an advantage over _error_, we may conclude that the want of these peculiar feelings is compensated by something of greater value, which arises to others from always having seen things in a just and pleasing light; from having always considered the Supreme Being as the kind parent of all his offspring. This, however, not having been my case, I cannot be so good a judge of the effects of it. At all events, we ought always to inculcate just views of things, assuring ourselves that _proper feelings and right conduct_ will be the consequence of them.

In the latter part of the interval between my leaving the grammar school and going to the academy, which was something more than two years, I attended two days in the week upon Mr. Haggerstone, a dissenting minister in the neighbourhood, who had been educated under Mr. Maclaurin. Of him I learned Geometry, Algebra and various branches of Mathematics, theoretical and practical. And at the same time I read, but with little assistance from him, Gravesend’s Elements of Natural Philosophy, Watt’s Logic, Locke’s Essay on the Human Understanding, &c, and made such a proficiency in other branches of learning, that when I was admitted at the academy (which was on Coward’s foundation) I was excused all the studies of the first year, and a great part of those of the second.

In the same interval I spent the latter part of every week with Mr. Thomas, a baptist minister now of Bristol but then of Gildersome, a village about four miles from Leeds, who had had no learned education. Him I instructed in Hebrew, and by that means made myself a considerable proficient in that language. At the same time I learned Chaldee and Syriac, and just began to read Arabic. Upon the whole, going to the academy later than is usual, and being thereby better furnished, I was qualified to appear there with greater advantage.

Before I went from home I was very desirous of being admitted a communicant in the congregation which I had always attended, and the old minister, as well as my Aunt, were as desirous of it as myself, but the elders of the Church, who had the government of it, refused me, because, when they interrogated me on the subject of the _sin of Adam_, I appeared not to be quite orthodox, not thinking that all the human race (supposing them not to have any sin of their own) were liable to the wrath of God, and the pains of hell for ever, on account of that sin only; for such was the question that was put to me. Some time before, having then no doubt of the truth of the doctrine, I well remember being much distressed that I could not feel a proper repentance for the sin of Adam; taking it for granted that without _this_ it could not be forgiven me. Mr. Haggerstone above mentioned, was a little more liberal than the members of the congregation in which I was brought up, being what is called a _Baxterian_;[1] and his general conversation had a liberal turn, and such as tended to undermine my prejudices. But what contributed to open my eyes still more was the conversation of a Mr. Walker, from Ashton under line, who preached as a candidate when our old minister was superannuated. He was an avowed Baxterian, and being rejected on that account his opinions were much canvassed, and he being a guest at the house of my Aunt, we soon became very intimate, and I thought I saw much of reason in his sentiments. Thinking farther on these subjects, I was, before I went to the academy, an Arminian, but had by no means rejected the doctrine of the trinity, or that of atonement.

[1] BAXTERIANS, The famous Non-conformist Richard Baxter who flourished about the middle of the last Century, attempted a Coalition between the doctrines of Calvin and Arminius. The former of these held that God from the beginning had elected a few of the human race to be saved, without reference to their good actions in this life, and had left the rest of mankind in a state of final and inevitable reprobation. The latter was of opinion that the Christian dispensation furnished the means of final Salvation to all men, though the merits of the death of Christ would be ultimately advantageous to believers only. Baxter, thought with Calvin that some among mankind were from the beginning elected unto eternal life, and gifted from above with the saving grace necessary in the first instance to the several steps of a believer’s christian character; but he thought also with Arminius that all men had common grace imparted to them, sufficient to enable them if they chose, to attain unto final Salvation by using the means ordained by Christ and his Apostles. Calvin also held the final perseverance of the Saints, or as it has since been expressed that a believer might fall foully but not finally, whereas Baxter seems to have thought that not every one who had saving grace imparted to him would persevere to the end, or as the Arminian Methodists quaintly express it, he held that a believer may fall both foully and finally. The compromising doctrine of Baxter may be seen in his very learned and unintelligible work entitled Catholick Theology. He used to be an annual communicant in the Church of England by way of exemplying his accommodating opinions.

T. C.

Though after I saw reason to change my opinions I found myself incommoded by the rigour of the congregation with which I was connected, I shall always acknowledge with great gratitude that I owe much to it. The business of religion was effectually attended to in it. We were all catechized in public ’till we were grown up, servants as well as others: the minister always expounded the scriptures with as much regularity as he preached, and there was hardly a day in the week, in which there was not some meeting of one or other part of the congregation. On one evening there was a meeting of the young men for conversation and prayer. This I constantly attended, praying extempore with others when called upon.

At my Aunt’s there was a monthly meeting of women, who acquitted themselves in prayer as well as any of the men belonging to the congregation. Being at first a child in the family, I was permitted to attend their meetings, and growing up insensibly, heard them after I was capable of judging. My Aunt after the death of her husband, prayed every morning and evening in her family, until I was about seventeen, when that duty devolved upon me.

The Lord’s day was kept with peculiar strictness. No victuals were dressed on that day in any family. No member of it was permitted to walk out for recreation, but the whole of the day was spent at the public meeting, or at home in reading, meditation, and prayer, in the family or the closet.