User:Jeff Dahl/sandbox/Priestly
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Joseph Priestley (March 26, 1733 – February 8, 1804) was an eighteenth-century British natural philosopher, Dissenting clergyman, political theorist, theologian, and educator. He is usually credited with the discovery of oxygen gas, although Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Antoine Lavoisier also have such a claim.[2]
A member of marginalized religious groups throughout his life, Priestley advocated religious toleration and equal rights for religious Dissenters. He argued for the extension of civil rights, because he believed that individuals could bring about progress and eventually the Christian Millennium.[3] In his metaphysical works, Priestley attempted to combine theism, materialism, and determinism, a project that has been called "audacious and original".[4] Because many of Priestley's texts were written during the French Revolution, they aroused public and governmental suspicion; he was eventually forced to flee to the United States after a mob burned down his home and church in 1791.
Priestley made significant contributions to pedagogy, including the publication of a seminal work on English grammar, the promotion of a liberal arts curriculum, and the advocacy of the study of modern history.
During his lifetime, Priestley's scientific reputation rested on his invention of soda water, his writings on electricity, and his discovery of several "airs" (gases), the most famous being what Priestley dubbed "dephlogisticated air" (oxygen). However, Priestley's determination to reject Lavoisier's "new chemistry" and to cling to phlogiston theory eventually left him isolated within the scientific community. Priestley's science was never divorced from his theology and he consistently tried to fuse Enlightenment rationalism with Christian theism.[5]
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[edit] Early life and education (1733–55)
Priestley was born to an established Dissenting (i.e., they did not conform to the Church of England) family in Fieldhead, Birstall, West Yorkshire (about six miles southwest of Leeds); he was the oldest of the six children of Mary Swift and Jonas Priestley, a dresser and finisher of cloth. Because his mother felt overwhelmed with the care of the family's young children, Priestley was sent to live with his maternal grandfather around the age of one; after his mother died five years later during what Priestley called "the hard winter of 1739", he returned home.[6] When his father remarried in 1741, Priestley was sent to live with his aunt and uncle, the wealthy and childless Sarah and John Keighley. Because Priestley was precocious—at the age of four he could perfectly recite the Westminster Shorter Catechism—Sarah Keighley sought the best education for the boy, intending him for the ministry. During his youth, Priestley attended local schools where he learned Greek and Latin, and during holidays, Hebrew.[7]
Around 1749 Priestley became seriously ill (perhaps with consumption ) and was convinced he was going to die. Having been raised a devout Calvinist, he believed a conversion experience was necessary for salvation, but doubted he had had one. Years later he described his torment: "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."[8] As a result of the suffering he experienced during his illness, Priestley became an Arminian; he was drawn to the tenet that Christ died for all, not just the elect few. Consequently, the elders of his home church refused him admission as a full member.[9]
As he gathered strength after his illness, which left him with a permanent stutter, Priestley gave up any thoughts of entering the ministry. In preparation for joining a relative in trade in Lisbon, he studied French, Italian, and German in addition to Chaldean, Syrian, and Arabic. He was tutored by the Rev. George Haggerstone, who first introduced him to higher mathematics, natural philosophy, logic, and metaphysics through the works of Isaac Watts, Willem 's Gravesande, and John Locke.[10]
[edit] Daventry Academy
Perhaps encouraged by his family, Priestley eventually decided to return to his theological studies, and in 1752 he matriculated at Daventry Academy.[11]Because he had read extensively, Priestley was allowed to skip the first two years of coursework at Daventry. He did not rest, however, and his intense study together with the liberal atmosphere of the school shifted his theology further leftward, to Arianism and determinism. He became what was called a Rational Dissenter. Abhorring dogma and religious mysticism, Rational Dissenters emphasized the rational analysis of the natural world and the Bible.[12]
Priestley later wrote that the book which influenced him most, save the Bible, was David Hartley's Observations on Man (1749). Hartley's psychological, philosophical, and theological treatise postulated a material theory of mind. Hartley aimed to construct a Christian philosophy in which both religious and moral "facts" could be scientifically proven. This same goal would occupy Priestley for his entire life. In his third year at Daventry, Priestley committed himself to the ministry, what he described as "the noblest of all professions".[13]
[edit] Needham Market and Nantwich (1755–61)
- See also: Joseph Priestley and education
Biographer Robert Schofield describes Priestly's first "call" in 1755 to the Dissenting parish in Needham Market, Suffolk as a "mistake" for both Priestley and the congregation. Needham Market was a small, rural town with a congregation wedded to tradition while Priestley yearned for urban life and roiling theological debate. Although he did not intentionally hide his heterodoxy when he interviewed for the position, his parishioners soon discovered how far his theology deviated from their own when he began a lecture series based on his Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion, a text he started writing at Daventry but did not publish until 1772. Attendance and donations to the church fell off dramatically. While Priestley's aunt had promised she would support him if he became a minister, she refused him any further assistance when she realized he was no longer a Calvinist. The stress of living in Needham increased Priestley's stammer so much that he sought an expensive cure in London, but to no avail. In order to earn extra money, Priestley tried to open a school, but the local families refused to send their children. His series of scientific lectures, titled "Use of the Globes", however, was more successful.[14]
Priestley's Daventry friends helped him obtain another position in Nantwich, Cheshire; his time there was happier. The congregation cared less about Priestley's heterodoxy and he busied himself learning to play the flute and opening a school. Unlike many schoolmasters of the time, Priestley taught his students natural philosophy and even bought scientific instruments for them. Appalled at the quality of the available English grammars, Priestley wrote his own: The Rudiments of English Grammar (1761).[15] His innovations in the description of English grammar, particularly his efforts to disassociate it from Latin grammar, have led twentieth-century scholars to describe him as "one of the great grammarians of his time".[16] After the publication of his Rudiments and the success of his school, Warrington Academy offered him a teaching position in 1761.[17]
[edit] Warrington Academy (1761–67)
In 1761 Priestley moved to Warrington and assumed the post of tutor of modern languages and rhetoric at Warrington's Dissenting academy, although he would have preferred to teach mathematics and natural philosophy. He fit in well at Warrington and quickly made friends with another tutor, John Seddon. On 23 June 1762 he married Mary Wilkinson of Wrexham, the daughter of ironmaster Isaac Wilkinson and sister of industrialist John Wilkinson. Of his marriage, Priestley wrote:
This proved a very suitable and happy connexion, my wife being a woman of an excellent understanding, much improved by reading, of great fortitude and strength of mind, and of a temper in the highest degree affectionate and generous; feeling strongly for others, and little for herself. Also, greatly excelling in every thing relating to household affairs, she entirely relieved me of all concern of that kind, which allowed me to give all my time to the prosecution of my studies, and the other duties of my station.[19]
The couple played several games of chess or backgammon every day and often joined other young families, such as the Aikins, for evening entertainments. On 17 April 1763 they had a daughter, named Sarah after Priestley's aunt.[20]
[edit] Educator and historian
- See also: Joseph Priestley and education
All of the books Priestley published while at Warrington emphasized the study of history; Priestley believed that a thorough understanding of history was necessary not only to worldly success but also to religious growth. He wrote histories of science and Christianity in an effort to reveal the progress of humanity and, paradoxically, the loss of a pure, "primitive Christianity".[21]
In his Essay on a Course of Liberal Education for Civil and Active Life (1765), Priestley argued that the education of the young should anticipate their future practical needs.[22] This principle of utility guided his unconventional curricular choices for Warrington's aspiring middle-class students. He recommended, for example, English and the modern languages instead of the classical languages and modern rather than ancient history. Furthermore, because Priestley viewed education as one of the primary forces shaping a person's character and the basis of morality, he, unusually for the time, promoted the education of middle-class women.[23] Some scholars of education have described Priestley as the "most considerable English writer on educational philosophy" between the seventeenth-century John Locke and the nineteenth-century Herbert Spencer.[24]
In his Lectures on History and General Policy (1788), Priestley argued for the benefits of an investigation of modern history, which was rarely studied at the time. The lectures cover a wide array of topics—everything from forms of government to commerce to manners. He narrated a providentialist and naturalist account of history, arguing that the study of history furthered the comprehension of God's natural laws. His millennial perspective was bound up with his optimism regarding scientific progress and the improvement of humanity. He believed that each age would improve upon the previous and the study of history allowed people to see and further this progress. Priestley also presented a new method for historical research that emphasized the primacy of original documents and material objects. Lectures on History was well-received and was employed by many educational institutions, such as New College at Hackney, Brown, Princeton, Yale, and Cambridge.[25]
I really like the chart, but not in this article Jeff Dahl 20:19, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Could you explain why? It is one of the most influential and popular works JP published. Awadewit | talk 21:53, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Priestley also designed visual study aides for his Lectures on History: A Chart of Biography (1765)[26] and A New Chart of History (1769).[27] According to Priestley, they "impressed" upon students "a just image of the rise, progress, extent, duration, and contemporary state of all the considerable empires that have ever existed in the world".[28] Both charts had accompanying prose descriptions and were popular for decades—A New Chart of History had gone through fifteen editions by 1816.[29] The trustees of Warrington were so impressed with Priestley's lectures and charts that they arranged for the University of Edinburgh to grant him a Doctor of Law degree in 1764.[30]
[edit] History of Electricity
<--As science is not my forte, I am going to leave these sections. I originally wrote them and they were corrected by others. I will do light copy editing, but I hesitate to change much. (Awadewit)--> The intellectually stimulating atmosphere of Warrington, dubbed the "Athens of the north", increased Priestley's interest in natural philosophy. He gave lectures on anatomy and, along with his friend Seddon, performed some experiments regarding temperature. He also urged the school to purchase more scientific equipment for its teachers and students.[31] Despite his busy teaching schedule, Priestley decided to write a history of electricity. Friends introduced him to the major British experimenters in the field: John Canton, William Watson, and Benjamin Franklin. These men encouraged Priestley to perform the experiments he wanted to include in his history; they believed that he could better describe the experiments if he had performed them himself. In the process of replicating others' experiments, however, Priestley became intrigued by the still unanswered questions regarding electricity and was prompted to design and undertake his own experiments.[32] (Impressed with his history of electricity and his Charts, Canton, Franklin, Watson, and Richard Price nominated Priestley for a fellowship in the Royal Society—he was accepted in 1766.) [33]
In 1767, the 700-page The History and Present State of Electricity was published to positive reviews.[34] The first half of the text is a history of the study of electricity to 1766; the second and more influential half is a description of contemporary theories about electricity and suggestions for future research. Priestley reported some of his own discoveries in the second section, such as the conductivity of charcoal.[35] This discovery overturned what he described as "one of the earliest and universally received maxims of electricity", that only water and metals could conduct electricity. Such experiments demonstrate that Priestley was interested in the relationship between chemistry and electricity from the beginning of his scientific career.[36] Schofield writes that Priestley, in one of his more speculative moments, provided "a mathematical quasi-demonstration of the inverse-square force law for electrical charges. It was the first respectable claim for that law, out of which came the development of a mathematical theory of static electricity."[37]
Priestley's strength as a natural philosopher was qualitative rather than quantitative and his observation of "a current of real air" between two electrified points would later interest Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell as they investigated electromagnetism. Priestley's text became the standard history of electricity for over a century; Alessandro Volta (who would go on to invent the battery), William Herschel (who discovered infrared radiation), and Henry Cavendish (who discovered hydrogen) all relied upon it. Priestley wrote a popular version of the History of Electricity for the general public titled A Familiar Introduction to the Study of Electricity (1768).[38] Like many other middle-class Dissenters at the time, Priestley engaged in commercial endeavors; he and his brother Timothy designed and marketed an "electrical machine" for budding experimenters, which they advertised in this work, but sales were slow and they eventually abandoned the project.[39]
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[edit] Leeds (1767–73)
In 1767 the Priestleys moved from Warrington to Leeds and Priestley became Mill Hill Chapel's minister. Two sons were born to the Priestleys in Leeds: Joseph, Jr. on 24 July 1768 and William three years later. Except for his membership on the Leeds Library Committee, which founded the town's first public library, Priestley was not active in the town's social life.[40] Instead, he corresponded with his old friends from Daventry and Warrington. Priestley did make one close friend in the area: Theophilus Lindsey, a rector at Catterick, Yorkshire; he was to become one of Priestley's most trusted friends: “I never chose to publish any thing of moment relating to theology, without consulting him; and hardly ever ventured to insert any thing that they [Lindsey and his wife] disapproved, being sensible that my disposition led to precipitancy, to which their coolness was a seasonable check."[41] Although Priestley had extended family around Leeds, it does not appear that they communicated. Schofield conjectures that they considered him a heretic.[42] Each year Priestley traveled to London to consult with his close friend and publisher, Joseph Johnson, and attend meetings of the Royal Society.
[edit] Minister of Mill Hill Chapel
- See also: Joseph Priestley and education
When Priestley became its minister, Mill Hill Chapel was one of the oldest and most respected Dissenting congregations in England, however during the early eighteenth century the congregation had fractured along doctrinal lines. He needed to unify the church, particularly because the emerging Methodist movement had been so successful in luring Dissenters away from their home congregations.[43]
Priestley believed that by educating the youth of the congregation, he would unite it, a principle he outlined at the beginning of his Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion (1772–74), published as part of a series of works Priestley wrote on religious education.[44] He therefore established and taught three classes at Mill Hill, delineated by age. Unlike the later Sunday schools founded by Robert Raikes, Priestley aimed his classes specifically at middle-class Dissenters. He implemented this same system of religious instruction when he became a minister at New Meeting in Birmingham over a decade later.[45]
The Institutes, however, was more than a recipe for religious instruction; it was also, as Schofield writes, "a summary of a half-century of the writing of liberal theologians on a number of issues and was to become a standard exposition of beliefs for generations of Unitarians".[46] Priestley had been working on the three-volume Institutes since his Daventry days and researching and writing the work eventually convinced him to adopt Socinianism, a form of Unitarianism. Priestley's theology, as well as the political views he erected on that theology, aligned him with the Rational Dissenters in Britain. This work marked an important change in Priestley's theological thinking that is critical to understanding his later writings—it paved the way for his materialism and necessatarianism.[47]
Priestley's major argument in the Institutes is that the only revealed religious truths that can be accepted are those that match one's experience of the natural world. Because his views of religion were deeply tied to his understanding of nature, the text's theism rests on the argument from design. Many of Priestley's arguments descended from eighteenth-century deism and comparative religion.[48] The Institutes shocked and appalled many readers, primarily because it challenged basic Christian orthodoxies, such as the divinity of Christ and the miracle of the Virgin Birth. Methodists in Leeds penned a hymn asking God to: "the Unitarian fiend expel / And chase his doctrine back to Hell."[49] Priestley wanted to return Christianity to its "primitive" or "pure" form by eliminating the "corruptions" which had accumulated over the centuries. The fourth part of the Institutes, An History of the Corruptions of Christianity, became so long that he was forced to issue it separately. Priestley believed that the Corruptions was "the most valuable" work he ever published. In demanding that his readers apply the logic of the emerging sciences and comparative history to the Bible and Christianity, Priestley alienated religious and scientific readers alike—scientific readers did not appreciate seeing science used in the defense of religion and religious readers dismissed the application of science to religion.[50]
[edit] Religious controversialist
Priestley engaged in numerous political and religious pamphlet wars. According to Schofield, "he entered each controversy with a cheerful conviction that he was right, while most of his opponents were convinced, from the outset, that he was willfully and maliciously wrong. He was able, then, to contrast his sweet reasonableness to their personal rancor."[51] However, as Schofield points out, Priestley rarely altered his opinion as a result of these debates.[52] While at Leeds he wrote controversial pamphlets on the Lord's Supper and on Calvinist doctrine; thousands of copies were published, making them some of Priestley's most widely-read works.[53]
Priestley also founded the Theological Repository, a journal committed to the open and rational inquiry of theological questions. Although he promised to print any contribution, only like-minded authors ever submitted articles. He was therefore obliged to provide much of the journal's content himself; however, this material became the basis for many of his later theological and metaphysical works. After only a few years, due to a lack of funds, he was forced to cease publishing the journal.[54] About a decade later, in 1784, Priestley revived the Theological Repository, but he again became responsible for much of the journal's content and again the journal became insolvent.[55]
[edit] Defender of Dissenters and political philosopher
- See also: Joseph Priestley and Dissent
Many of Priestley's political writings were aimed at supporting the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, which restricted the rights of Dissenters. They could not hold political office, serve in the armed forces, or attend Oxford and Cambridge unless they subscribed to the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. Dissenters repeatedly petitioned Parliament to repeal the Acts, arguing that they were being treated as second-class citizens.[56]
Priestley's friends, particularly other Rational Dissenters, urged him to publish a work on the injustices experienced by Dissenters; the result was his Essay on the First Principles of Government (1768).[57] An early work of modern liberal political theory and Priestley's most thorough treatment of political theory, it, unusually for the time, precisely distinguishes between political and civil rights and argues for expansive civil rights. Priestley identifies separate private and public spheres, contending that the government should only have control over the public sphere. Education and religion, in particular, he maintains, are matters of private conscience and should not be administered by the state. Priestley's later radicalism emerged from his belief that the British government was infringing upon these individual freedoms. Essay on Government went through three English editions and was translated into Dutch; it influenced early nineteenth-century political philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham.[58]
In another attempt to champion the rights of Dissenters, Priestley defended their rights against the attacks of William Blackstone, an eminent legal theorist. Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, fast becoming the standard legal guide, stated that dissent from the Church of England was a crime and that Dissenters could not be loyal subjects. Furious, Priestley lashed out with his Remarks on Dr. Blackstone's Commentaries (1769), correcting Blackstone's grammar, his history, and his interpretation of the law.[59] Blackstone, chastened, replied in a pamphlet and altered subsequent editions of his Commentaries: he rephrased the offending passages and removed the sections claiming that Dissenters could not be loyal subjects, but he retained his description of Dissent as a crime.[60]
[edit] Natural philosopher: electricity, Optics, and soda water
Although Priestley claimed that natural philosophy was only a hobby for him, it was clearly one that he took seriously, for he believed that science could increase human happiness. In his History of Electricity he describes the scientist as promoting the "security and happiness of mankind" and as one who is "a good citizen and a useful member of society".[61] Priestley's science was always eminently practical and he rarely concerned himself with theoretical questions—his model was Benjamin Franklin. When he moved to Leeds, Priestley continued his electrical and chemical experiments (the latter aided by a steady supply of carbon dioxide from a neighboring brewery). Between 1767 and 1770, he presented five papers to the Royal Society out of these initial experiments; the first four papers explored coronal discharges and other phenomena related to electrical discharge, while the fifth reported on the conductivity of charcoals from different sources. His subsequent experimental work increasingly focused on chemistry and pneumatics.[62]
Priestley published the first volume of his projected history of experimental philosophy, The History and Present State of Discoveries Relating to Vision, Light and Colours (referred to as his Optics), in 1772.[63] Unlike his History of Electricity, it was not popular and had only one edition, although it was the only English history of optics for 150 years. Priestley paid careful attention to the history of optics and presented excellent explanations of early optics experiments, but his mathematical deficiencies caused him to dismiss several important contemporary theories. Furthermore, he did not include any of the practical sections that had made his History of Electricity so useful to practicing natural philosophers. The text was hastily written and it sold poorly; the cost of researching, writing, and publishing the Optics convinced Priestley to abandon his history of experimental philosophy.[64]
After the dual financial disasters of the Optics and the Theological Repository, Priestley was looking for ways to improve his finances. When offered the position of astronomer for James Cook's second voyage to the South Seas, he eagerly accepted and even informed his congregation at Mill Hill that he would be absent for several years. But the offer was suddenly rescinded. Priestley claimed that he was denied the position because he was a Dissenter, but as Schofield explains, the organizing committee replaced him with a more qualified candidate. Schofield attributes the debacle to Joseph Banks's high-handedness in nominating Priestley in the first place.[65]
Priestley contributed in a small way to the Cook voyage—he provided the crew with a method for making soda water, which he speculated might be a cure for scurvy (it is not). He then published a pamphlet with Directions for Impregnating Water with Fixed Air (1772).[66] Priestley did not bother to exploit the commercial potential of soda water, but others such as J. J. Schweppe made fortunes from it.[67] In 1773. the Royal Society recognized Priestley's achievements in natural philosophy by awarding him the Copley Medal.
Priestley's friends wanted to find him a more financially secure position and in 1772, prompted by Richard Price and Benjamin Franklin, Lord Shelburne delicately wrote to Priestley asking him to direct the education of his children and to act as his general assistant. Priestley debated whether to sacrifice his ministry and accept the position; after intense soul-searching, he resigned from Mill Hill Chapel on 20 December 1772 and preached his last sermon on 16 May 1773.[68]
[edit] Calne (1773–80)
In 1773 the Priestleys moved to Calne and a year later Lord Shelburne and Priestley took a tour of Europe. According to Priestley's close friend Theophilus Lindsey, Priestley was "much improved by this view of mankind at large".[70] Upon their return, Priestley easily fulfilled his duties as librarian and tutor. The workload was intentionally light, allowing him time to pursue his scientific investigations and theological interests (Shelburne even equipped a laboratory for him). Priestley also became a political adviser to Shelburne, gathering information on parliamentary issues and serving as a liaison between Shelburne and the Dissenting and American interests. When the Priestleys' third son was born on 24 May 1777, they named him Henry at the Lord's request. [71]
[edit] Materialist philosopher
- See also: Joseph Priestley and Dissent
Priestley wrote his most important philosophical works during his years with Lord Shelburne. In a series of five major metaphysical works published between 1774 and 1778, he argued for a philosophy which foregrounds four concepts: determinism, materialism, causation, and necessity. Priestley believed in the perfectability of humankind, specifically through the study of nature. By studying the natural world, he argued, people would learn how to increase their compassion, happiness, and prosperity.[72]
In the first of these works, The Examination of Dr. Reid's Inquiry. . . Dr. Beattie's Essay. . . and Dr. Oswald's Appeal (1774),[73] Priestley strenuously opposes Thomas Reid's theory of mind and maintains that ideas do not resemble their referents in the world. He bases this contention on Hartley's associationism and postulation that ideas are only connected to the outside world through vibrations in the aether.[74] Priestley accuses Common Sense philosophers, such as Reid, of deliberately confusing truth and opinion, of advocating complete relativism, as well as encouraging religious dogmatism and political authoritarianism.[75]
While writing the Examination Priestley became aware of how few people were acquainted with Hartley's theories, and therefore decided to prepare a severely redacted edition of Hartley's Observations on Man for a larger audience—Hartley's Theory of the Human Mind (1775).[76] One of the most appealing aspects of Hartley's theories to Priestley, according to historians of science McEvoy and McGuire, is that Hartley embarked on a "search for single, unifying laws".[77] A wide variety of philosophers, scientists, and poets became associationists as a result of Priestley's work, including Erasmus Darwin, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, John Stuart Mill, Alexander Bain, and Herbert Spencer.[78]
In Examination and Hartley's Theory Priestley had argued for materialism, strongly suggesting that there was no mind-body duality. Such a position shocked and angered many of his readers who believed that such a duality was necessary for the soul to exist. In order to explain his position more clearly Priestley wrote Disquisitions relating to Matter and Spirit (1777);[79] in this work he also contends that discussing the soul is impossible because it is made of a divine substance, and humanity cannot access the divine. At least a dozen hostile refutations were published by 1782 and Priestley was branded an atheist.[80]
Maintaining that humans had no free will, Priestley continued his series of metaphysical arguments in The Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity Illustrated (1777).[81] He was the first to claim that what he called "philosophical necessity" (a position akin to absolute determinism) is consonant with Christianity. His philosophy was based on his theological interpretation of the natural world; like the rest of nature, man's mind is subject to the laws of causation, but because a benevolent God created these laws, Priestley argued, the world and the men in it will eventually be perfected. Evil is thus an imperfect understanding of the world. Philosophical Necessity influenced the nineteenth-century utilitarians Mill and Spencer, who were drawn to its determinism. Immanuel Kant, entranced by Priestley's determinism but repelled by his reliance on observed reality, created a transcendental version of determinism that he claimed granted freedom to the mind and soul.[82]
Written as a result of unsettling conversations Priestley had with French philosophes in the early 1770s, Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever (1780),[83] the last of this series of works, continued to defend his thesis that materialism and determinism can be reconciled with a belief in God. The text addresses those whose faith is shaped by books and fashion; Priestley draws an analogy between the skepticism of educated men and the credulity of the masses. In the course of the three volumes, Priestley responds to, among other works, Baron d'Holbach's Systeme de la Nature and David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779).[84]
[edit] Founder of Unitarianism
When Priestley's friend from Leeds, Theophilus Lindsey, decided to establish a new Christian denomination that would not restrict its members' beliefs, Priestley and others such as publisher Joseph Johnson hurried to his aid. On 17 April 1774, Lindsey held the first Unitarian service in Britain; he had even designed his own liturgy, of which many were critical. Priestley rushed to his defense with Letter to a Layman, on the Subject of the Rev. Mr. Lindsey's Proposal for a Reformed English Church (1774),[85] claiming that only the form of worship had been altered, not its substance, and attacking those who only followed religion as a fashion. Priestley attended the church regularly in the 1770s and occasionally preached there.[86] He continued to support institutionalized Unitarianism for the rest of his life, writing several Defenses of Unitarianism and encouraging the foundation of new Unitarian chapels throughout Britain and the United States.[87]
[edit] Natural philosopher of air
Priestley's years in Calne were the only ones in his life dominated by scientific investigations; they were also the most fruitful scientific period in his career. His experiments were almost entirely confined to "airs" and out of this work emerged his most important scientific texts: the six volumes of Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air (1774–86).[89][90] These experiments helped repudiate the last vestiges of the theory of four elements; as one early biographer writes: "taken collectively, [Priestley] did more than those of any one of his contemporaries to uproot and destroy the only generalisation by which his immediate predecessors had sought to group and connect the phenomena of chemistry", however "he was wholly unable to perceive this fact".[91] Priestley's work on "airs" is not easily classified. As historian of science Simon Schaffer points out, it "has been seen as a branch of physics, or chemistry, or natural philosophy, or some highly idiosyncratic version of Priestley's own invention".[92] Also, the volumes were both a scientific and a political enterprise for Priestley; he argues in them that science could destroy "undue and usurped authority", writing that the government has "reason to tremble even at an air pump or an electrical machine".[93]
Priestley's first volume of Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air outlined several important discoveries, namely, experiments that would eventually lead to the discovery of photosynthesis and the discovery of several airs: "nitrous air" (nitric oxide, NO), "vapor of spirit of salt" (later called "acid air" or "marine acid air"; anhydrous hydrochloric acid, HCl), "alkaline air" (ammonia, NH3), "diminished" or "dephlogisticated nitrous air" (nitrous oxide, N2O), and "deplogisticated air" (oxygen, O2). Priestly also developed the "nitrous air test", which tested for the "goodness of air". Using a pneumatic trough, he would mix nitrous air with a test sample, over water or mercury, and measure the decrease in volume—the principle of eudiometry.[88] After a small history of the study of airs, he explained his own experiments in an open and sincere style; as Thorpe writes, "whatever he knows or thinks he tells: doubts, perplexities, blunders are set down with the most refreshing candour."[94] Priestley also invented and described cheap and easy-to-assemble experimental apparatus. His colleagues therefore believed that they could easily reproduce his experiments in order to verify them or to answer the questions that had puzzled him.[95]
Although many of his results puzzled him, Priestley used phlogiston theory to resolve the difficulties. This theory, however, led him to conclude that that there were only three types of "air": "fixed", "alkaline", and "acid". Priestley ignored the burgeoning chemistry of his day, indeed dismissing it in these volumes. Instead, he focused on gases and the "changes in their sensible properties", as had natural philosophers before him. He isolated carbon monoxide (CO) but seems not to have realized that it was a separate "air" from the others that he had discovered.[96]
[edit] Discovery of oxygen
- See also: Wikisource:The Mouse's Petition
After the publication of the first volume of Experiments and Observations, Priestley undertook another set of experiments. In August 1774 he isolated an "air" that appeared to be completely new, but he did not have an opportunity to pursue the matter because he was about to tour Europe with Shelburne. While in Paris, however, Priestley managed to replicate the experiment for others, including Antoine Lavoisier. After returning to Britain in January 1775, he continued his experiments and discovered "vitriolic acid air" (sulfur dioxide, SO2). In March he wrote to several people regarding the new "air" that he had discovered in August. One of these letters was read aloud to the Royal Society and a paper was published in Philosophical Transactions titled "An Account of further Discoveries in Air" that outlined the discovery. Priestley called the new substance "dephlogisticated air" and described it as "five or six times better than common air for the purpose of respiration, inflammation, and, I believe, every other use of common atmospherical air".[97] He had discovered oxygen gas (O2). As revised for Experiments and Observations, his paper begins:
The contents of this section will furnish a very striking illustration of the truth of a remark which I have more than once made in my [natural] philosophical writings … that more is owing to what we call chance—that is, philosophically speaking, to the observations of events rising from unknown causes than to any proper design or preconceived theory in this business. … For my own part, I will frankly acknowledge that at the commencement of my experiments recited in this section I was so far from having formed any hypothesis that led to the discoveries I made in pursuing them that they would have appeared very improbable to me had I been told of them; and when the decisive facts did at length obtrude themselves upon my notice it was very slowly, and with great hesitation, that I yielded to the evidence of my senses. [emphasis Priestley's][98]
Priestley assembled his oxygen paper and several others into a second volume of Experiments and Observations on Air, published in 1776. He does not emphasize his discovery of "dephlogisticated air" (leaving it to Part III of the volume) but instead argues in the preface how important such discoveries are to rational religion. His paper narrates the discovery chronologically, relating the long delays between experiments and his initial puzzlements. Thus, it is difficult to determine when exactly Priestley "discovered" oxygen.[99] Such dating is significant as both Lavoisier and Swedish pharmacist Carl Wilhelm Scheele have strong claims to the discovery of oxygen as well, Scheele having been the first to isolate the gas (although he published after Priestley) and Lavoisier having been the first to describe it as purified "air itself entire without alteration" (not "dephlogisticated air").[100]
Priestley also connected oxygen to respiration. In his paper "Observations on Respiration and the Use of the Blood" he was the first to suggest a connection between blood and air, although he did so using phlogiston theory. In typical Priestley fashion, he prefaced the paper with a history of respiration. A year later, clearly influenced by Priestley, Lavoisier was also discussing respiration at the Académie des sciences. His work began the long train of discovery that produced papers on oxygen respiration and culminated in the overthrow of phlogiston theory.[101]
Around 1779 Priestley and Shelburne had a rupture, the reasons for which remain unclear. Shelburne blamed Priestley's health, and Priestley claimed Shelburne had no further use for him. Some contemporaries speculated that Priestley's outspokenness had hurt Shelburne's political career. Schofield argues that the most likely reason was Shelburne's recent marriage to Louisa Fitzpatrick—apparently, she did not like the Priestleys. Although Priestley considered moving to America, he eventually accepted Birmingham New Meeting's offer to be their minister.[102]
[edit] Birmingham (1780–91)
In 1780 the Priestleys moved to Birmingham and spent a happy decade surrounded by old friends, until they were forced to flee in 1791 by mob violence. Priestley accepted the ministerial position at New Meeting on the condition that he be required to preach and teach only on Sundays, so that he would have time for his writing and scientific experiments. As in Leeds, Priestley established classes for the youth of his parish and by 1781, he was teaching 150 students. Although New Meeting supplied Priestley with an annual salary of 100 guineas, such a sum would never have supported his experimental interests. Happily, friends and patrons frequently offered him money and goods that allowed him to continue his scientific investigations.[103]
[edit] Chemical revolution
Many of the friends that Priestley made in Birmingham were members of the Lunar Society, a group of manufacturers, inventors, and natural philosophers who assembled monthly to discuss their work. Matthew Boulton (manufacturer), Erasmus Darwin (naturalist, physician, poet, and grandfather to Charles Darwin), James Keir (chemist and geologist), James Watt (inventor and engineer), Josiah Wedgwood (manufacturer) and William Withering (botanist, chemist, and geologist) formed the core of the group. Priestley was asked to join this unique society and contributed much to the work of its members.[104] In this stimulating intellectual environment, he published several important scientific papers. One of the most significant was "Experiments relating to Phlogiston, and the seeming Conversion of Water into Air" (1783). The first part of the paper attempts to refute Lavoisier's challenges to his work on oxygen; the second part describes how the steam that results from heated water is "converted" into air. After several variations of the experiment, with different substances as the fuel for the fire and several different collecting apparatuses which produced different results, he concluded that air could travel through more substances than previously surmised, a conclusion "contrary to all the known principles of hydrostatics".[105] This discovery, along with his earlier work on what would later be recognized as gaseous diffusion, would eventually lead John Dalton and Thomas Graham to formulate the kinetic theory of gases.[106]
In 1777, Antoine Lavoisier had published Réflexions sur le Phlogistique pour servir de Dévelopement à la Théorie de la Combustion et de Respiration, his first sustained attack on phlogiston theory; it was against these attacks that Priestley responded in 1783. While Priestley accepted parts of Lavoisier's theory, he was unprepared to assent to the major revolutions Lavoisier proposed—the overthrow of phlogiston, a chemistry conceptualized around elements and compounds, and a new chemical nomenclature. This new system, dubbed the "new chemistry", introduced many of the fundamental concepts of modern chemistry. It was Priestley's original experiments on "dephlogisticated air" (oxygen), combustion, and water that provided Lavoisier with the data he needed to construct much of his system, but Priestley never accepted Lavoisier's new theories and continued to cling to phlogiston theory for the rest of his life. Lavoisier's system was based largely on the weight of substances and Priestley was less interested in these measurements; he preferred to observe changes in heat, color, and particularly volume. His experiments tested "airs" for "their solubility in water, their power of supporting or extinguishing flame, whether they were respirable, how they behaved with acid and alkaline air, and with nitric oxide and inflammable air, and lastly how they were affected by the electric spark."[107]
By 1789, when Lavoisier published his Traité élémentaire de chimie and founded the Annales de Chimie, the new chemistry had come into its own. Priestley published several more scientific papers in Birmingham, the majority attempting to refute Lavoisier; Priestley and other Lunar Society members argued that the new French system was too expensive, too difficult to test, and unnecessarily complex. Priestley in particular rejected its "establishment" aura.[108] Priestley's refusal to accept Lavoisier's "new chemistry" and his determination to adhere to a less satisfactory theory has confused many scholars.[109] Schofield explains it thus: "Priestley was never a chemist; in a modern, and even a Lavoisian, sense, he was never a scientist. He was a natural philosopher, concerned with the economy of nature and obsessed with an idea of unity, in theology and in nature. He attempted, prematurely, to conflate phenomena and give reasons for the reactions he observed."[110] Historian of science John McEvoy largely agrees, writing that Priestley's view that nature was coextensive with God and thus infinite, a view which encouraged him to focus on facts over hypotheses and theories, prompted him to reject Lavoisier's system.[111] Moreover, he argues that "Priestley's isolated and lonely opposition to the oxygen theory was a measure of his passionate concern for the principles of intellectual freedom, epistemic equality and critical inquiry."[112] Priestley himself claimed in the last volume of Experiments and Observations that his most valuable works were his theological ones because they were "superior [in] dignity and importance".[113] Priestley, unlike his friends in the Lunar Society, would continue the war over phlogiston until he died.[114]
[edit] Defender of Dissenters and French Revolutionaries
Although Priestley was busy defending phlogiston theory from the "new chemists", most of what he published in Birmingham was theological. In 1782 he published the fourth volume of his Institutes, An History of the Corruptions of Christianity, describing how he thought the teachings of the early Christian church had been "corrupted" or distorted.[115] Schofield describes the work as "derivative, disorganized, wordy, and repetitive, detailed, exhaustive, and devastatingly argued".[116] The text addresses issues from the divinity of Christ to the proper form for the Lord's Supper. Thomas Jefferson would later write of the profound effect that Corruptions had on him: "I have read his Corruptions of Christianity, and Early Opinions of Jesus, over and over again; and I rest on them … as the basis of my own faith. These writings have never been answered."[117] Although a few readers such as Jefferson approved of the work, it was generally harshly reviewed because of its extreme theological positions, particularly its rejection of the Trinity; other Rational Dissenters, however, highly approved of it.[118]
In 1785, while Priestley was engaged in a pamphlet war over his Corruptions, he also published The Importance and Extent of Free Enquiry, claiming that the Reformation had not really reformed the church.[119] Moreover, in words that would boil over into a national debate, he challenged his readers to enact change:
Let us not, therefore, be discouraged, though, for the present, we should see no great number of churches professedly unitarian…. We are, as it were, laying gunpowder, grain by grain, under the old building of error and superstition, which a single spark may hereafter inflame, so as to produce an instantaneous explosion; in consequence of which that edifice, the erection of which has been the work of ages, may be overturned in a moment, and so effectually as that the same foundation can never be built upon again…. And till things are properly ripe for such a revolution, it would be absurd to expect it, and in vain to attempt it.[120]
Although discouraged by friends from using such inflammatory language, Priestley was not a writer to back away from his opinions in print and he included it, forever branding himself as "Gunpowder Joe". One popular ballad of the time contained the stanza:
- Gunpowder Priestley would
- Deluge the throne with blood,
- and lay the great and good
- Low in the dust.[121]
After the publication of this seeming call for revolution in the midst of the French Revolution, pamphleteers stepped up their attacks on Priestley and he and his church were even threatened with legal action.[122]
Priestley also became involved in Birmingham's Anti-Slavery Committee, along with many of his friends from the Lunar Society. He took a leading role on the committee, he preached abolitionist sermons, and he published pamphlets decrying slavery. He also promoted the speaking tour of Olaudah Equiano, a former slave whose autobiography had become a bestseller.[123]
In 1787, 1789, and 1790, Dissenters again tried to repeal the Test and Corporation Acts. Although initially it looked as if they might succeed, by 1790, with the fears of revolution looming in the minds of many members of Parliament, few were swayed by Charles James Fox's arguments for equal rights. Political cartoons, one of the most effective and popular media of the time, skewered the Dissenters and Priestley.[124] In the midst of these trying times, it was the betrayal of William Pitt and Edmund Burke that most angered Priestley and his friends; they had expected the two men's support and instead both argued against the repeal. Priestley wrote a series of Letters to William Pitt[125] and Letters to Burke[126] in an attempt to persuade them otherwise, but to no avail; these publications also inflamed the populace against him.
Dissenters such as Priestley who supported the French Revolution came under increasing suspicion as skepticism regarding the revolution grew.[127] In its propaganda against "radicals" such as Priestley, Pitt's administration used the "gunpowder" statement to argue that Priestley and other Dissenters wanted to overthrow the government. Burke, in his famous Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), tied natural philosophers to the French Revolution and argued that radicals who supported science in Britain "considered man in their experiments no more than they do mice in an air pump".[128] Burke also associates republican principles with alchemy and insubstantial air, mocking the scientific work done by both Priestley and French chemists. He made much in his later writings of the connections between "Gunpowder Joe", science, and Lavoisier—who was improving gunpowder for the French in their war against Britain.[129]
Paradoxically, it was Burke, the secular statesman, who argued against science and maintained that religion should be the basis of civil society while Priestley, the Dissenting minister, argued that religion could not provide the basis for civil society and should be restricted to one's private life.[130] Burke indicted progressives like Priestley who wanted to embark on social experiments to improve society, preferring to rely on tradition and custom.[131]
[edit] Birmingham Riots of 1791
The animus that had been building against Dissenters and supporters of the American and French Revolutions exploded in July 1791. Priestley and several other Dissenters had arranged to have a celebratory dinner on the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, a provocative action in a country where many disapproved of the French Revolution and feared that it might spread to Britain. Fearing violence, Priestley was convinced by his friends not to attend. Rioters gathered outside the hotel during the banquet and attacked the attendees as they left; they then moved on to the New Meeting and Old Meeting churches—both were burned to the ground. Priestley and his wife fled from their home; although their son William and others stayed behind to protect their property, the mob overcame them and torched Priestley's house, destroying his valuable laboratory and all of the family's belongings. Other homes of Dissenters were burned in the three-day riot. Priestley spent several days hiding with friends until he was able to travel safely to London. The carefully executed attacks of the "mob" and the farcical trials of only a handful of the "leaders" convinced many at the time—and modern historians—that the attacks were planned and condoned by local Birmingham magistrates. When George III was eventually forced to send troops to the area, he said: "I cannot but feel better pleased that Priestley is the sufferer for the doctrines he and his party have instilled, and that the people see them in their true light."[132]
[edit] Hackney (1791–94)
Unable to return to Birmingham, the Priestleys eventually settled in Clapton, near Hackney, where Priestley gave a series of lectures on history and natural philosophy at the new Dissenting academy, New College. Friends helped the couple rebuild their lives, contributing money, books, and laboratory equipment. Priestley tried to obtain restitution from the government for the destruction of his Birmingham property, but he was never fully reimbursed.[134] Priestley also published An Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the Riots in Birmingham (1791)[135] which indicted the people of Birmingham for allowing the riots to occur and for "violating the principles of English government".[136] He argued that such actions would force Dissenters, some of Britain's most productive citizens, to flee the country and that the nation had not fulfilled its promises of freedom.[137]
Many of the Priestleys' friends urged them to leave Britain and emigrate to either France or the new United States, even though Priestley had received an appointment to preach for the Gravel Pit Meeting congregation. Priestley published many of the sermons he preached there; these sermons, particularly the two Fast Sermons, reflect his growing millenarianism—his belief that the end of the world was fast approaching. After comparing Biblical prophecies to recent history, Priestley concluded that the French Revolution was a harbinger of the second coming of Christ. Priestley's works had always had a millennial cast, but after the beginning of the French Revolution, this strain became increasingly prominent.[138] He wrote to a younger friend that while he himself would not see the Second Coming, his friend "may probably live to see it … It cannot, I think be more than twenty years [away]."[139]
Daily life gradually became more difficult for the family: Priestley was burned in effigy along with Thomas Paine; vicious political cartoons continued to be published about him; letters were sent to him from across the country, comparing him to the devil and Guy Fawkes; tradespeople feared the family's business; and Priestley's Royal Academy friends distanced themselves. Their sons were also finding it difficult to find steady work. As the penalties became ever harsher for those who spoke out against the government, the Priestleys decided to move to America. Despite being elected to the French National Convention by three separate departments in 1792, a dangerous honor he declined, Priestley decided to emigrate to the more peaceful United States.[140] In "Religious Musings" Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote of Priestley's forced exile:
- Lo! Priestley there, patriot, and saint, and sage,
- Him, full of years, from his loved native land
- Statesmen blood-stained and priests idolatrous
- By dark lies maddening the blind multitude
- Drove with vain hate.[141]
Five weeks after Priestley left, William Pitt's administration began arresting radicals for "sedition and libel", resulting in the famous 1794 Treason Trials.
[edit] Pennsylvania (1794–1804)
The Priestleys arrived in New York City in 1794; they were immediately feted by various political groups trying to gain Priestley's endorsement. Attempting to steer clear of political discord in his new country, he declined to enter into controversy in what was fast becoming a politically polarized country. Americans knew Priestley less as a man of science and more as a defender of the freedom of the colonies and of Dissenters. As the Priestleys traveled from New York to their new home in Northumberland, Pennsylvania, they stopped in Philadelphia where Priestley gave a series of sermons and helped to found the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia. Priestley turned down an opportunity to teach chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania and the couple began building a home in rural Pennsylvania. The Priestleys originally thought that a small community would spring up around their home: plots of land had been sold by a land speculator with whom they were acquainted, but the community did not materialize.[143]
Priestley's attempts to avoid political controversy in the United States failed. In 1795 William Cobbett published Observations on the Emigration of Dr. Joseph Priestley, accusing him of treason against Britain, mocking his writing style, and attempting to undermine his scientific credibility. When the XYZ Affair broke in 1798, legislators responding to the fears manufactured by journalists such as Cobbett passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which targeted immigrants such as Priestley. His political fortunes took an even worse turn when Cobbett obtained a set of letters sent to Priestley by radical printer John Hurford Stone and the liberal novelist Helen Maria Williams, who were both living in revolutionary France at the time. Cobbett published them in his newspaper, asserting that Priestley and his friends were fomenting a revolution. Priestley was eventually forced to defend himself in print.[144][145]
Priestley continued the educational projects that had always been important to him; he helped establish "Northumberland Academy" and even donated his library to the fledging institution. He and Thomas Jefferson exchanged letters regarding the proper structure of a university and Jefferson relied on this advice when he founded the University of Virginia. Jefferson and Priestley became quite close and when he had completed his General History of the Christian Church,[146] he dedicated it to President Jefferson, writing that "it is now only that I can say I see nothing to fear from the hand of power, the government under which I live being for the first time truly favourable to me."[147]
Family matters contributed to making Priestley's time in America difficult. His son Henry died in 1795, probably of malaria. Mary Priestley died soon after in 1796; she was already ill and she never fully recovered after the shock of her son's death.[148] After his wife's death, Priestley wrote to a friend: "I feel quite unhinged and incapable of the exertions I used to make. Having been always very domestic, reading and writing with my wife sitting near me, and often reading to her, I miss her everywhere."[149] Priestley's family relations deteriorated even further in 1800 when a local Pennsylvania newspaper published an article accusing William Priestley, intoxicated with "French principles", of trying to poison the entire Priestley family—both father and son vigorously denied the story. Whether or not William actually tried to poison his family with arsenic is unclear; Priestley claimed that his son, when drunk, accidentally put tartar emetic in the flour. After this incident, William moved to Louisiana and established a sugar plantation using slave labor.[150]
Priestley tried to continue his scientific investigations in America with the support of the American Philosophical Association, but he rarely received news from Europe; unaware of the latest scientific developments, he was no longer on the forefront of discovery. Although most of his published work focused on defending phlogiston theory, he also did some original work on spontaneous generation and dreams. Despite Priestley's lack of real scientific output at this time, his very presence in America stimulated an interest in chemistry in the young country's inhabitants.[151]
By 1801, Priestley had become so ill that he could no longer write or perform experiments, and on the morning of 6 February 1804, he died. The American Philosophical Society had a memorial service in his honour; later in April, the members of New Meeting in Birmingham agreed to wear mourning for two months, and at Mill Hill Chapel in Leeds, the minister preached a funeral sermon on the text "he was a burning and a shining light; and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light".[152] Priestley's epitaph reads:
- Return unto thy rest, O my soul, for the
- Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.
- I will lay me down in peace and sleep till
- I awake in the morning of the resurrection.[153]
[edit] Legacy
By the time he died in 1804, Priestley had been made a member of every major scientific society in the world and he had discovered numerous substances.[154] In his eulogy of Priestley, the French naturalist George Cuvier, praising his discoveries while at the same time lamenting his refusal to abandon phlogiston theory, called him "the father of modern chemistry [who] never acknowledged his daughter".[155] Priestley published more than 150 works on topics ranging from political philosophy to education to theology to natural philosophy, leading eighteenth-century writer James Boswell to describe him as the "literary Jack-of-all Trades".[156] He had been the leader and inspiration for British radicals in the 1790s, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt, William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, and had led the way for the utilitarians Jeremy Bentham and James Mill.[157] He had also helped found Unitarianism.[158]
Immanuel Kant praised Priestley in his Critique of Pure Reason (1781), writing that he "knew how to combine his paradoxical teaching with the interests of religion".[159] Indeed, it was Priestley's aim to "put the most 'advanced' Enlightenment ideas into the service of a rationalized thought heterodox Christianity, under the guidance of the basic principles of scientific method".[160] Hazlitt wrote in "The Late Dr. Priestley" (1829) that he "was certainly the best controversialist of his day, and one of the best in the language", adding "in boldness of inquiry, quickness and elasticity of mind, and ease in making himself understood, he had no superior".[161] Upon his election to the Presidency, Jefferson wrote to Priestley, "yours is one of the few lives precious to mankind for the continuance of which every thinking man is solicitous".[162]
Yet, considering the extent of Priestley's influence, scholars have not written a great deal on either him or his works. In the early twentieth century, Priestley was most often described as a conservative and dogmatic scientist who was nevertheless a political and religious reformer.[163] In his review of the scholarship on Priestley, historian of science Simon Schaffer describes the two dominant portraits of Priestley: the first depicts him as "a playful innocent" who stumbled across his discoveries; the second portrays him as innocent as well as "warped" for not better understanding the implications of his discoveries. Assessing Priestley's works as a totality has been difficult for scholars because of his wide-ranging interests. His scientific discoveries have usually been divorced from his theological and metaphysical publications in order to make an analysis of his life and writings easier, but this approach has recently been challenged by scholars such as John McEvoy and Robert Schofield. While early Priestley scholarship claimed that his theological and metaphysical works were "distractions" and "obstacles" to his scientific work, that published in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s has maintained that Priestley's works constitute a unified theory. But as Schaffer explains, no convincing explanation of what this synthesis might be has yet been set forth. Scholars therefore still tend to assess Priestley's accomplishments within modern-day disciplinary frameworks.[164] More recently, in 2001, historian of science Dan Eshet has argued that efforts to create a "synoptic view" only result in a rationalization of the contradictions in Priestley's thought, because the attempts, such as those by McEvoy and Schofield, have been "organized around philosophical categories" and have "separate[d] the producers of scientific ideas from any social conflict".[165]
Priestley has been remembered by the towns in which he served as a reforming educator and minister and by the scientific organizations he influenced. Priestley College in Warrington is named in his honor. In Birstall, Leeds, and Birmingham, he is memorialized through statuary[166] and plaques commemorating him have been put up in Birmingham and Warrington.[167] In honor of his many scientific achievements, the American Chemical Society named its highest honor, the Priestley Medal, after him.[168] Also, since 1952 Dickinson College has presented the Priestley Award to a scientist who makes "discoveries which contribute to the welfare of mankind".[169]
