Collected essays

Abstract

the lire 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 ex- istence 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 things : hold fast that which is good," and encouraged the discussion of every imaginable proposition with complete freedom, the leading professors taking opposite sides ; a discipline which, admirable as it may be from a purely scientific point of view, would seem to be calculated to make acute, rather than sound, divines.Priestley tells us, in his " Autobiography/' that he generally found himself on the unorthodox side : and, as he grew older, and his faculties attained their matiirity, this native tendency towards heterodoxy grew with his growth and strengthened with his strength.He passed from Calvinism to Arianism ; and finally, in middle life, JOSEPH PRIESTLEY 5 smile of approbation with which he usually received them : nor did he fail to point out, in a very encouraging manner, the ingenuity or force of any remarks that were made, when they merited these characters.His object, as well as Dr. Aikin's, was to engage the students to examine and decide for themselves, uninfluenced by the sentiments of any other It would be difficult to give a better description of a model

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