Priestley at Birmingham--His theological work there--His love of
literature--His catholicity--His personal characteristics.
In 1784 Priestley brought out a revised edition of the work on which his
fame as a man of science mainly rests, under the title of "_Experiments
and Observations on Different Kinds of Air_; and other branches of
Natural Philosophy connected with the Subject. In three volumes, being
the former six abridged and methodised. With many Additions. London,
1790. 3 vols. 8vo."
In a letter to his friend Keir we find an allusion to this matter. He
says:--
"I am working like a horse at the new arrangements of my _6 vols. of
Experiments_. It is a tedious business.
"What do you think of an attempt to dedicate this work to the Prince
of Wales? The King I shall never think of in any such light, nor the
Prince, unless it be possible that he will be a real patron of science
and could look upon it in some other light than that of an honour to
myself."
An interesting account of Priestley at this period of his life is to be
found in the Memoirs of the French geologist, Faujar St Fond, who
visited Birmingham some time after Priestley's settlement there. He
says:--
"Dr Priestley received me with the greatest kindness. He presented me
to his wife and his daughter, who were distinguished by vivacity,
intelligence and gentleness of manner. The young lady spoke to me of
one of her brothers, who was then finishing his education at Geneva
and to whom she seemed very much attached.
"The building in which Dr Priestley made his chemical and
philosophical experiments was detached from his house to avoid the
danger of fire. It consisted of several apartments on a ground floor.
Upon entering it we were struck with a simple and ingenious apparatus
for making experiments on inflammable gas extracted from iron and
water reduced to vapour. The tube, which was thick and long, was made
of red copper and cast in one piece to avoid joinings. The part
exposed to the fire was thicker than the rest. Into this tube he
introduced cuttings or filings of iron, and instead of dropping in the
water he preferred making it enter in vapour. The furnace destined for
this operation was supplied with coke made of coal, which is the best
of all combustibles for the intensity and equality of its heat. By
these means he obtained a considerable quantity of inflammable gas of
great lightness and without any smell. He observed to me, that by
increasing the apparatus and using iron or copper tubes of a large
calibre, aerostatic balloons might be filled with far less trouble and
expense than by vitriolic acid. Dr Priestley allowed me to take a
drawing of this new apparatus for the purpose of communicating it to
the French chemists who are engaged in the same pursuit....
"Dr Priestley did not regard the experiments made relative to the
decomposition of water as satisfactory. He could not admit the fact to
be demonstrated so long as the gas was only obtained through the
medium of iron, a metal which is itself susceptible of inflammability;
but he waited with impatience for the result of the experiments of the
French chemists, particularly those of Lavoisier, who had invented and
caused to be constructed an extensive apparatus for the same object.
"'The decomposition of water,' said this indefatigable philosopher,
addressing himself to me, 'is of so much importance in Natural
Philosophy, and would occupy so distinguished a place among the
phenomena of the universe, that far from admitting the fact upon
slight evidence, and as it were from enthusiasm, it were rather to be
wished that all objections that may be made, and which will still long
continue to be made against this theory were completely refuted; in
the conflict of opinions, truth may at last be obtained. But I have
still so many doubts upon this subject, and I have so many experiments
to make, both _pro_ and _con_, that I can as yet regard the greatest
as only started.'
"Dr Priestley has embellished his solitude with a philosophical
cabinet, which contains all the instruments necessary for his
experiments, and a library rendered valuable by a choice of excellent
works. The learned possessor employs himself in a variety of studies:
History, Moral Philosophy and Religion have all in their turn engaged
his pen. An active, intelligent mind and a natural avidity for
knowledge gave him a passion for experimental philosophy; but the
sensibility and gentleness of his disposition have sometimes directed
his attention to pious and philanthropic studies, which do honour to
the goodness of his heart, since they always have for their object the
happiness of mankind."
Priestley's time in Birmingham was not, however, wholly devoted to
science and the social joys of the Lunar Society. Much of it was given
to his beloved theology and to editing the _Theological Repository_,
which he revived some time after he had settled there. A few months
after his arrival he was invited to take charge of the congregation of
the New Meeting. With the consent of the congregation his services were
mainly confined to Sunday duty and to catechising and lecturing.
Of his preaching Miss Hutton has left us an account. She says:--
"I look upon his character as a preacher to be as amicable as his
character as a philosopher is great. In the pulpit he is mild,
persuasive and unaffected, and his sermons are full of sound reasoning
and good sense. He is not what is called an orator; he uses no
actions, no declamation; but his voice and manner are those of one
friend speaking to another."
His congregation is described as the most liberal in England, and with
many of its members, particularly Mr Russell, he was on the most
intimate and affectionate terms. During this period he completed his
friendly controversy with the Bishop of Waterford on the duration of
Christ's ministry, and he published a volume of sermons. To the same
period belongs his _History of the Corruptions of Christianity_, which
he composed and published shortly after his settlement at Birmingham.
This work, which he spoke of as the most valuable of all his writings,
he dedicated to his "dear friend," Theophilus Lindsey, in the hope that
their names may ever be connected as closely after death as they were
connected by friendship during life. To Lindsey's example of a pure love
of truth, and of the most fearless integrity in asserting it, as
evidenced by the sacrifices he had made to it, Priestley says that he
owed much of his own wishes "to imbibe the same spirit."
The work, as originally planned, was to be the concluding part of his
_Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion_, but as the matter of it
grew it became extended into a separate treatise, larger, indeed, than
the whole of the Institutes. Its object was to show that modern
Christianity was a departure from the original scheme, and that the
innovations have debased its spirit and almost annihilated all the happy
effects which it was eminently calculated to produce. Although it had
begun to recover itself from its corrupted state, and the Reformation
was advancing apace, abuses still continued in many places, even
although their virulence was very generally abated and the number was
greatly increased of those who were most zealous in the profession of
Christianity, whose lives were the greatest ornament to it, and who hold
it in such purity that if it was fairly exhibited and universally
understood it could hardly fail to recommend itself to the acceptance of
the whole world.
"But so long as all the Christianity that is known to Heathens,
Mahometans and Jews is of a corrupted and debased kind, and
particularly while the profession of it is so much connected with
_worldly interest_, it is no wonder that mankind in general refuse to
admit it, and that they can even hardly be prevailed upon to give any
attention to the evidence that is alleged in its favour. Whereas, when
the system itself shall appear to be less liable to objection, it is
to be hoped that they may be brought to give proper attention to it,
and to the evidence on which it rests."
In this work Priestley attempted to trace every "corruption"--that is
every innovation or departure from what he conceives to be the original
scheme--to its proper source and "to show what circumstances in the
state of things, and especially of other prevailing opinions and
prejudices, made the alteration, in doctrine or practice, sufficiently
natural, and the introduction and establishment of it easy." Priestley
hoped as a true rationalist that this historical method would be found
to be one of the most satisfactory modes of argumentation, in order to
prove that what he objected to was no part of the original scheme.
"For after the clearest refutation of any particular doctrine that has
been long established in Christian churches it will still be asked,
how, if it be no part of the scheme, it ever came to be thought so,
and to be so generally acquiesced in; and in many cases the mind will
not be perfectly satisfied till such questions be answered."
We are mainly concerned with this remarkable work as illustrating the
character and attributes of its author, and it is not within our
province to give any analysis of its contents. It must be remembered in
connection with it that Priestley was no longer an Arian; he was not
even a Socinian, as that term was understood by the immediate followers
of Faustus Socinus, who thought it their duty as Christians, and,
indeed, essential to Christianity, to pray to Jesus Christ,
notwithstanding they believed him to be, in Priestley's phrase, a mere
man. Priestley was at this time what he remained until his death--a
strict Humanitarian, although he believed in the supernatural power and
divine mission of Christ.
Of the reception which awaited his book he could not be altogether
unprepared. It was received by the orthodox with a storm of disapproval,
and a dozen pens were immediately set to work to demolish its doctrine
and to defend the principles he so boldly assailed. Among those who
entered the lists the most formidable was Dr Horsley, then Archdeacon of
St Albans, whose _Animadversions_ were described as "at once nervous,
animated and evangelical, but in some passages too sarcastic."
It says something for Priestley's position and influence in the
theological world that his book should have met with the sternest
disapprobation in Lutheran, and especially Calvinistic, circles abroad.
It was ordered to be burnt by the hands of the common hangman at
Dordrecht, in 1785--a sign that the spirit of the Synod of Dort had
survived even two centuries.
Priestley thereupon undertook to collect from the original writers the
state of opinion on the subject in the age succeeding that of the
apostles, and he published the results of his investigation in his
"_History of Early Opinion concerning Jesus Christ_." In four volumes.
8vo.
This bringing him still more antagonists he retaliated by writing a
pamphlet annually in defence of the Unitarian doctrine, until it
appeared to himself and his friends that his antagonists produced
nothing to which it was of any consequence to reply. The pains that he
took to ascertain the state of early opinions concerning Jesus Christ,
and the great misapprehensions that he says he perceived in all the
ecclesiastical historians, led him to undertake a _General History of
the Christian Church to the Fall of the Western Empire_.
"If you ask me," says the Rev. Alexander Gordon, "what I should reckon
Priestley's greatest service to theological science, I should say that
it is to be found in his adoption of the historical method of
investigating the problems of doctrine and in his special handling of
that method. The faith of Priestley was the precursor of the modern
theme of theological development, though I do not think he used the
term. His term was 'corruption,' a term which, it may be said, begs a
very important question. At any rate it throws into strong relief the
fact, on which all are agreed, that there is, and must be, some
primitive nucleus whence developments proceed. Now it is the object of
all who, for any reason, are interested in the origin of Christianity
to reach this primitive nucleus at its first, undeveloped and
uncorrupted stage. Where are we to seek it? By universal consent we
must go to the New Testament. There, if anywhere, we shall come upon
its traces. Here the agreement begins and ends. The New Testament is
in all hands. But one man finds the Trinity in it; another the
simplest Monotheism; a third, the papacy; a fourth, the supremacy of
the illuminating spirit. The same words yield opposite results,
because the principles of interpretation differ. The New Testament is
to be interpreted by the voice of the Church; or by the testimony of
the Creeds; or by the opinions of the Fathers of the first centuries
before the age of dogmatic creeds began at Nicæa. These had been the
expedients proposed by the Catholic, the Anglican, the Arian
respectively. Socinus had rejected them all. It cannot matter to me
(so, in effect, he contended) what any Church, or any Creed, or any
Father may have said; I go to the New Testament myself, to read it
with my own eyes, to understand it with my own mind.
"This was not the position of Priestley. He thought this as irrational
a proceeding as any of those which it superseded. Even if, by good
luck, the true sense were reached, there was no means of proving it to
be such. The New Testament, in Priestley's view, is not to be
construed as a book of enigmas which might belong to any age. It is
not dropped straight out of heaven into the hands of the man of to-day
for him to make what he will of it. It belongs to a specific period;
it was written for a given class of persons; it was written to be
understood. 'Therefore,' said Priestley, 'it will be an unanswerable
argument _a priori_ against any particular doctrine being contained in
the Scriptures, that it was never understood to be so by those persons
for whose immediate use the Scriptures were written, and who must have
been much better qualified to understand them, in that respect at
least, than we can pretend to be at the present day.' (_Works_, vi.
7.)
"Accordingly it is the whole object of Priestley's histories of
doctrine to get at the mind of the common Christian people in the
first age; to make their primary understanding of Scripture the norm
for its true interpretation; and then to trace the process by which
this first impression, this real meaning, suffered transmutation by
the speculative genius of philosophising divines. Of the Nicene
Council he quaintly says, 'there was no House of Commons in that
assembly.' It 'represented the Christian Church in no other sense than
the House of Lords might be said to represent the English nation.' He
conceived that he could penetrate to this unsophisticated sense of the
primitive believers through the very writings of the Fathers whereby
it had been overlaid and obscured. Their admissions, their rebukes,
their appeals, their laboured arguments, their surviving
conservatisms: all were materials to his purpose.
"The plan was novel, the conception original, the whole endeavour
strictly scientific in its method and basis. And I do not think that
Priestley's work in this department has received the full recognition
which it rightly claims from us, whether we regard its spirit or its
execution. The progress of biblical knowledge implies, no doubt, a
readjustment of his argument and a revision of his conclusions. But
the readjustment and revision are effected by the use of principles
which he was the first to set forth and apply. We now go behind the
New Testament just as he went behind the Fathers. The New Testament
itself is, to us, largely a record by help of which we may reach the
first impression made by the life, and work, and word of Christ. In so
doing we do but carry out his suggestions and carry on his method. He
is the genuine precursor of the properly historic treatment of
biblical and theological questions."
Priestley's action with respect to the Sunday school movement was
another rock of offence to the Established clergy. This movement began
in Birmingham in 1784, and was supported by all denominations. The High
Church party, however, insisted that all children, irrespective of the
religious persuasion of their parents, should attend the worship of the
Established Church and no other. After some time, and mainly at the
instigation of Priestley, the Dissenters opened their separate Sunday
schools, the Old Meeting in 1787, and the New Meeting in 1788, and
Priestley preached the first sermon on behalf of the New Meeting Schools
in November 1789, and with his son Joseph took an active share in the
teaching.
Priestley was a sincere lover of literature, and no man was more
sensible of its value to the moral and intellectual life of communities.
In his own case he had derived so much benefit from a ready access to
books which were beyond his means to purchase that he was ever willing
to lend himself to any well-considered attempt to open the storehouses
of literature, in its widest sense, as freely as possible, and to do all
in his power to foster the love of reading and the spirit of inquiry
among all classes of persons. In each succeeding situation--Needham,
Nantwich, Warrington, Leeds--he left evidences of his efforts to make
books as accessible as possible to the community of which he was for the
time a member. Leeds still enjoys a striking example of these efforts in
its proprietary library, and much of its reputation and character is
owing to the wise and enlightened spirit which he infused into its
administration.
As to the library at Birmingham, he eventually succeeded in giving to
it, as Hutton says, "that stability and method without which no
institution can prosper." We are further told that "the Society are
under many and great obligations to the learned Doctor; it was him who
altered its original plan and put it on a more extensive scale; he
amended and enlarged the laws and has paid a great attention to its
welfare and growing interests."
Priestley's action, and more especially the catholicity he displayed in
the selection and admission of such books as in his judgment tended to
the spread of rationalism, whether in religion or in politics, drew down
upon him the wrath of the Court party, and more particularly of the
beneficed clergy of the town and district, and the library was
vigorously denounced as "a fountain of erroneous opinions, spreading
infidelity, heresy and schism through the whole neighbourhood."
This catholicity is reflected in almost every circumstance of his daily
life.
"If liberality of sentiment," he wrote on one occasion, "be the result
of general and various acquaintance, few men now living have had a
better opportunity of acquiring it than myself. This has arisen from
the great variety of my pursuits, which has naturally brought me
acquainted with persons of all principles and characters. One day, I
remember, I dined in company with an eminent popish priest; the
evening I spent with philosophers, determined unbelievers; the next
morning I breakfasted, at his own request, with a most zealously
orthodox clergyman, Mr Toplady, and the rest of that day I spent with
Dr Jebb, Mr Lindsey and some others, men in all respects after my own
heart. I have since enriched my acquaintance with that of some very
intelligent Jews; and my opponents, who consider me already as half a
Mahometan, will not suppose that I can have any objection to the
society of persons of that religion."
Dr Samuel Parr, the Prebend of St Paul's, a staunch friend and true
admirer of Priestley, who wrote the inscription on the tablet to his
memory in the New Meeting House at Birmingham, related the following
characteristic anecdote to Mrs Robert A. Wainwright, who died in 1891,
in her 84th year:--
"Now remember this. I knew your grandfather, Dr Priestley. He once
invited me to dinner at Fair Hill, and I never was at a more agreeable
party in my life. Your grandfather was at the head of the table. I sat
at the bottom. At your grandfather's right hand was Mr Berington, the
Roman Catholic, and Mr Galton, the Quaker, on his left. Next to me was
Robert Robinson, the Baptist, and Mr Proud, minister of the New
Jerusalem Church."
All the five guests were remarkable men and distinguished in their
several Churches. Dr Parr, one of the most erudite scholars of his time
and an acute critic, an inveterate Whig, and a political ally of Fox,
Burke and North, was Vicar of Wadenhoe in Northamptonshire, although he
resided, as assistant curate, at Hatton, near Warwick, where he had an
excellent library. Berington wrote a _Literary History of the Middle
Ages_, and the _History of Abelard and Heloise_. Robert Robinson, of
Cambridge, was the author of the _History of Baptism_, _Ecclesiastical
Researches_, _Village Sermons_ and other books. The Swedenborgian
minister was the chief defender of the New Jerusalem Church in England,
and was engaged in controversy with Priestley.
A contemporary account of Priestley at this period of his life describes
him as about the middle stature, or five feet eight inches high; slender
and well proportioned; of fair complexion, eyes grey and sparkling with
intelligence, and his whole countenance expressive of the benignity of
his heart. He often smiled, but seldom laughed. He was extremely active
and agile in his motions; he walked fast and very erect, and his
deportment was dignified. His usual dress was a black coat without a
cape, a fine linen or cambric stock, a cocked hat, a powdered wig, shoes
and buckles. He commonly walked with a long cane in his right hand, and
was an excellent pedestrian. "The whole of his dress was remarkably
clean, and this purity of person and simple dignity of manners evinced
that philosophic propriety which prevailed throughout his conduct as a
private individual."
He rose about six o'clock and commonly retired to his study, where he
continued until eight, when he met his family at breakfast. He
breakfasted on tea, and after breakfast again went to his study,
accompanied by his amanuensis. He often devoted the whole of his morning
to composition, or divided his morning between the study and the
laboratory. When engaged in experimental work he commonly wore a white
apron and canvas covers drawn over his sleeves. He dined at one o'clock
and was very abstemious. He seldom drank wine or beer. In the afternoon
he usually took a walk, frequently to Birmingham, and spent some time at
the office where his works were being printed. He supped at eight, the
meal usually consisting of vegetables, and retired to rest shortly after
ten. He was extremely methodical in his habits and a rigid economist of
time.
At Daventry he began the practice, which he continued up to within three
or four days of his death, of keeping, in Peter Annet's system of
shorthand, a diary in which he noted where he had been, the nature of
his employment, what he had been reading, and any hints or suggestions
of future work which had occurred to him, when he rose and the hour at
which he went to bed. He was very methodical in his reading and in the
alternation of his studies and relaxation. He never read a book without
determining in his own mind when he would finish it. Had he a work to
transcribe, he would fix a time for its completion. At the beginning of
each year he arranged the plan he intended to pursue, and at the close
he reviewed the general situation of his affairs and took stock of the
progress he had made, noting whether the execution of his plan exceeded
or fell short of his expectations. It was this regular apportionment of
his time, and the habits of method and order in the arrangement of his
business which he adopted in early life, and from which he never
materially deviated, together with his uniformly good health, his
industry and aptitude for rapid work, which enabled him to achieve what
he did. It was, he says, a great advantage to him that he never was
under the necessity of retiring from company in order to compose
anything. Being fond of domestic life he got a habit of writing on any
subject by the parlour fire with his wife and children about him, and
occasionally talking to them without experiencing any inconvenience from
such interruptions. When he was a young author (although he did not
publish anything until he was about thirty) strictures on his writings
gave him some disturbance, though he believed even then less than they
do most others; but after some time things of that kind hardly affected
him at all, and on this account he thinks he may be said to have been
well formed for public controversy. But what always made him easy in any
controversy in which he was engaged was his fixed resolution frankly to
acknowledge any mistake that he might perceive he had fallen into. "That
I had never been in the least backward to do this in matters of
philosophy can never be denied."
Though he has been considered as fond of controversy, and that his chief
delight consisted in it, yet it was far from being true. He was more
frequently the defendant than the assailant. His controversies, as far
as it depended upon himself, were carried on with temper and decency. He
was never malicious, nor even sarcastic or indignant, unless provoked.
Priestley was a very busy man and a very industrious man, but he had not
the power of sustained and concentrated application to a single subject
which is the characteristic of men of great intellectual eminence. In
this respect he was far inferior to his contemporaries Watt and
Cavendish. His quick and active mind enabled him rapidly to assimilate
the ideas of others, but it may be doubted, even in theology, whether he
pushed his convictions and doctrinal beliefs beyond the limits reached
by previous thinkers. His philosophy, as Huxley has pointed out,
contains little that will be new to the readers of Hobbes, Spinoza,
Collins, Hume and Hartley. "It does not appear," says his son, "that he
spent more than six or eight hours per day in business that required
much mental exertion." In his diary he laid down the following daily
arrangements of time for a minister's studies:--Studying the Scriptures,
one hour. Practical writers, half-an-hour. Philosophy and History, two
hours. Classics, half-an-hour. Composition, one hour--in all five hours.
"All which," he adds, "may be conveniently dispatched before dinner,
which leaves the afternoon for visiting and company, and the evening for
exceeding in any article if there be occasion."
His son tells us that for many years of his life he never spent less
than two or three hours a day in games of amusement, as cards and
backgammon, but particularly chess, at which he and his wife played
regularly three games after dinner and as many after supper. As his
children grew up, chess was laid aside for whist or some round game at
cards, which he enjoyed as much as any of the company. He was fond, too,
of bodily exercise, and was particularly attached to his garden, in
which he worked constantly. His laboratory also afforded him exercise,
as he never employed an assistant, and never allowed anyone even to
light his fire.
The attention, he says, which he paid to the phenomena of his own mind,
made him sensible of some great defects in its constitution. He was, he
says, from an early period, subject to a "most humbling failure of
recollection," so that he sometimes lost all ideas of both persons and
things that he had been conversant with. He says, "I have so completely
forgotten what I have myself published, that in reading my own writings
what I find in them often appears perfectly new to me, and I have more
than once made experiments the results of which had been published by
me."
Apprised of this defect he never failed to note down as soon as possible
everything that he wished not to forget. The same failing led him to
devise and have recourse to a variety of mechanical expedients to secure
and arrange his thoughts, which were of the greatest use to him in the
composition of large and complex works, and what he says excited the
wonder of some of his readers would only have made them smile had they
seen him at work. "But by simple and mechanical methods one man shall do
that in a month which shall cost another, of equal ability, whole years
to execute. This methodical arrangement of a large work is greatly
facilitated by mechanical methods, and nothing contributes more to the
perspicuity of a large work than a good arrangement of its parts."
What he learned to know with respect to himself tended much, he says, to
lessen both his admiration and his contempt of others.
"Could we have entered into the mind of Sir Isaac Newton, and have
traced all the steps by which he produced his great works, we might
see nothing very extraordinary in the process. And great powers with
respect to some things are generally attended with great defects in
others; and these may not appear in a man's writings. For this reason,
it seldom happens but that our admiration of philosophers and writers
is lessened by a personal knowledge of them."
Great defects may, however, be more than counter-balanced by great
excellences, and accordingly he hopes that his defect of recollection,
possibly due to a want of sufficient coherence in the association of
ideas formerly impressed, might arise from a mental constitution more
favourable to new associations, so that what he lost with respect to
memory may have been compensated by what is called invention, or new and
original combinations of ideas.
In the domestic relations of life he was uniformly kind and
affectionate. As was truly said of him on Darton's portrait, "Not malice
itself could ever fix a stain on his private conduct or impeach his
integrity."