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OBIT U A R Y.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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oThh experiments became , either in his own hands or in those of other naturalists , 3 . source of instructive consequences- ; and there are still some amongst them which fiave not been considered -with all the attention they claim , —some which , will perhaps one . day unfold a new order of important truths . - ~
This work excited general interest ; it was translated into every language ; the most eminent naturalists repeated * . , varied , and made comments on his experiments . The Royal Societyr on the appearance of 3 iis first volume , presented him with Copley ' s Medal , which is given for the ^> est . work of natural philosophy ,
published during the year . This medal is of little intrinic value > but the English consider it the noblest reward attainable by scientific men . The Academy of Paris ^ conferred on him a reward not less noble , . and , on account of its infreqwency , more
difficult to obtain , £ he title of one of the eight foreign menibers ; a title to which all the learned men in Europe aspire . The list of those members begins with Newton , Leibnitz , and Peter the Great , ? md it has at no time been dishonoured by the names afterwards inserted .
The modest Priestley was astonished it ; the glory he had acquired , and at the multitude of admirable discoveries which nature seemed to have reserved for him alone ; , forgetting that her favours were lipt gratuitous ; that the truths she had so satisfactorily revealed were extorted by his indefatigable perseverance and
ingenious methods of interrogation . Other men are . careful to conceal what they owe to chance ; Priestley seems willing to attribute every thing to its influence ; he tells with unexampled candor , how often it assisted him imperceived by himself , and hpw often he was in possession of new substances without . observing them ; nor does he ever . conceal those erroneous
views by which he had sometimes been actuated , and which had been corrected by experience alone . These confessions did honour to his be
Obit U A R Y.
OBIT U A R Y .
MRS . MARY CAPPE , sister of the late Rev . Newcome Cappe , lately at York in the 73 d year of her age . Few perhaps through the course of a long life ever tro 4 the path of . tumble duty with more undeviating steps , and her reward even in this world w ^ as great . Tfre testimony of
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modesty , without disarming envy . They whose opinions ^ and , inetho < iical plans had led to no discoveries , . failed him a mere experimenter , without system or arrangement : it is not surprising , said they , that from so large a number of Essays and combinations , there should proceed some fortunate results . But real philosophers , Tknowing that repeated efforts are invariably the prire of those fortunate suggestions which produce and regulate other ideas , were not the dupes of these selfish critics ; ancl they who delight to increase our
admiration by the advantageous light in which they place" the great discoveries they have made , are hot displeased with them who , like . Priestley , chiise rather to accelerate our enjoyment * by exhibiting their discoveries as they arise , and ingenuously relating their complicated proceedings .
Such was the effect of Priestley ' s made of writing . His book is not an assemblage of theorems deduced from each other , as they might have been conceived in the eternal mind ; it is a mere journal of his thoughts in all their irregularity ; it shews us a man groping at first in profound darkness ; then discerning every gleam of light , arid endeavouring to attract and to reflect it 5 sometimes led astray by illusive meteors , but arriving at length at a boundless and fertile region . Should we be sorry if the great instructors of mankind , if Archimedes , if
Newton , had in the same manner admitted us to their confidence . When Newton was asked by what means he had arrived at such wonderful discoveries , he answered , by much thinking . What pleasure should we derive from knowing
* he long train of thought from which Newton derived that great idea which is , if I may so speak , the soul of all his successors ! His books enable us to appreciate the powers of nature 5 but it is only when we thus behold it in action , that , we can perfectly know the finest work of nature—r-the genius of a great man .
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an approving conscience enabled her to sustain a long and painful illness with exemplary fortitude- She was supported through the whole by cliristian hopes and Christian promises , and she met the approach of death without anxiety ' and without fear . <
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Eulogy on Dr . Priestley . 219
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^ To continued . ]
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1806, page 219, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1723/page/51/
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