Priestley in America | Page 2

definite value, which has persisted
through many succeeding decades and is so matter-of-fact that rarely
does one arise to ask who first discovered this simple oxide of carbon.
Priestley was a man of strong human sympathies. He loved to mingle
with men and exchange thoughts. Furthermore, Priestley was a
minister--a preacher. He was ordained while at Warrington, and gloried
in the fact that he was a Dissenting Minister. It was not his devotion to
science which sent him "into exile." His advanced thought along
political and religious lines, his unequivocal utterances on such
subjects,--proved to be the rock upon which he shipwrecked. It has
been said--
By some strange irony of fate this man, who was by nature one of the
most peaceable and peace-loving of men, singularly calm and
dispassionate, not prone to disputation or given to wrangling, acquired
the reputation of being perhaps the most cantankerous man of his
time....
There is a wide-spread impression that Priestley was a chemist. This is
the answer which invariably comes from the lips of students upon
being interrogated concerning him. The truth is that Priestley's attention
was only turned to chemistry when in the thirties by Matthew Turner,
who lectured on this subject in the Warrington Academy in which
Priestley labored as a teacher. So he was rather advanced in life before
the science he enriched was revealed to him in the experimental way.
Let it again be declared, he was a teacher. His thoughts were mostly
those of a teacher. Education occupied him. He wrote upon it. The old
Warrington Academy was a "hot-bed of liberal dissent," and there were
few subjects upon which he did not publicly declare himself as a
dissenter.

He learned to know our own delightful Franklin in one of his visits to
London. Franklin was then sixty years of age, while Priestley was little
more than half his age. A warm friendship immediately sprang up. It
reacted powerfully upon Priestley's work as "a political thinker and as a
natural philosopher." In short, Franklin "made Priestley into a man of
science." This intimacy between these remarkable men should not
escape American students. Recall that positively fascinating letter
(1788) from Franklin to Benjamin Vaughan, in which occur these
words:
Remember me affectionately ... to the honest heretic Dr. Priestley. I do
not call him honest by way of distinction, for I think all the heretics I
have known have been virtuous men. They have the virtue of Fortitude,
or they would not venture to own their heresy; and they cannot afford
to be deficient in any of the other virtues, as that would give advantage
to their many enemies.... Do not however mistake me. It is not to my
good friend's heresy that I impute his honesty. On the contrary 'tis his
honesty that has brought upon him the character of heretic.
Much of Priestley's thought was given to religious matters. In Leeds he
acknowledged himself a humanitarian, or
a believer in the doctrine that Jesus Christ was in nature solely and
truly a man, however highly exalted by God.
His home in Leeds adjoined a "public brew house." He there amused
himself with experiments on carbon dioxide (fixed air). Step by step he
became strongly attracted to experimentation. His means, however,
forbade the purchase of apparatus and he was obliged to devise the
same and also to think out his own methods of attack. Naturally, his
apparatus was simple. He loved to repeat experiments, thus insuring
their accuracy.
In 1772 he published his first paper on Pneumatic Chemistry. It told of
the impregnation of water with carbon dioxide. It attracted attention
and was translated into French. This soda-water paper won for Priestley
the Copley medal (1773). While thus signally honored he continued
publishing views on theology and metaphysics. These made a

considerable uproar.
Then came the memorable year of 1774--the birth-year of oxygen. How
many chemists, with but two years in the science, have been so
fortunate as to discover an element, better still probably the most
important of all the elements! It was certainly a rare good fortune! It
couldn't help but make him the observed among observers. This may
have occasioned the hue and cry against his polemical essays on
government and church to become more frequent and in some instances
almost furious.
It was now that he repaired to London. Here he had daily intercourse
with Franklin, whose encouragement prompted him to go bravely
forward in his adopted course.
It was in 1780 that he took up his residence in Birmingham. This was
done at the instance of his brother-in-law. The atmosphere was most
congenial and friendly. Then, he was most desirous of resuming his
ministerial duties; further, he would have near at hand good workmen
to aid him in the preparation of apparatus for