Priestley in America | Page 2

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 his philosophical pursuits. Best of all his friends were there, including those devoted to science. Faujar St. Fond, a French geologist has recorded a visit to Priestley--
Dr. Priestley received me with the greatest kindness.... The building in which