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    all occasion ^ and always pursuin g avowed ends by direct means . In integrity and disinterestedness , in the strict performance of every social duty , no one could surpass him . His temper was easy and cheerfu j , his affections were kind , his dispositions

    friei * dly . Such was the gentleness and sweetness of his manner in social intercourse , that some who had entertained the strongest prejudices against him on account of his opiniops , were converted into friends on

    3 . personal acquaintance . Of the warm and lasting attachment of his more intimate friends a most honourable proof was given , which he did not live to know . It being understood in England that he was likely to suffer a loss of 200 Z . in his annual

    income , about forty persons joined in malting up a sum of 450 / ., which was meant to be continued annually during life . No man who engaged so much in controversy , and suffered so much from malignity , was ever more void of ill-will towards his opponents . If he was an eager controversialist , it

    was because he was very much in earnest on all the subjects into which he entered , not because he had any personalities to gratify . If now and then he betrayed a little contempt for adversaries whom he thought equally arrogant and incapable , he never used the language of animosity . Indeed , his necessarian principles

    coincided with his temper in producing a kind of apathy to the rancour apd abuse of antagonists . In his intellectual frame were combined quickness , activity , acuteness , and that inventive faculty which is the characteristic of genius . These qualities were less suited to the laborious

    investigations of what is termed erudition , than to the argumentative deductions of metaphysics , and the experimental researches of natural philosophy . Assiduous study had , | however , given him a familiarity with the learned languages sufficient in

    genera ! to render the sense of authors clear to him ; and he aimed at nothing more . In his own language he was contented with facility and perspicuity of expression , in which he remarkably excelled .

    The writings of Dr . Priestley were so numerous , Jth # t they form a aumty ejrpf * jrtictep jn eacji of # flow-

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    ing classes : Ger ^ ral Philosophy ; Pneumatic Chemistry ; Metaphysics ; Civil Liberty ; Religious Liberty ; Ecclesiastical History ; Evidences of the Christian Eevelation ; Defences of Unitarianism ; Miscellaneous Theology ; Miscellaneous Literature . A

    particular enumeration of them cannot here be expected - and in addition to what has already been noticed , it will only be attempted to give a . concise view of what he effected in the three branches of science for which he was most distingiiishecL

    It is as a chemical philosopher that he stands highest in the capacity of an inventor or discoverer , and it is in this character that his name will probably be chiefly known to posterity . ^ The manner in which his

    inquiries into the nature of aeriform fluids commenced has already been mentioned . They had conducted him before 177 £ to the knowledge of the nitrous and muriatic airs , the application of the former as a test of the

    purity of common air , and many facts respecting the processes by which air is diminished or deteriorated . In 1774 he made his fundamental discovery ( which was also made about the same time by Scheele ) of pure , or what he termed dephlogisticated

    air . In 1776 he communicated to the Royal Society some curious remarks on respiration , and the mode in which the blood acquires its colour from the air ; and in 1778 he discovered the property of

    vegetables growing in the light to correct impure air . By his subsequent experiments , a variety of other aeriform bodies , and new modes of the production of those already known , the revivification of metallic calces in

    in-29 If Dr . Priestley , approved himself , as we believe , an eminent instrument of the Divine Goodness , in displaying the simplicity that is in Christ , so long obscured by the forms of man ' s invention , we trust there is a character , far above that of a philosopher , by which he will be known to late posterity , and with

    increasing- veneration . Dr . Priestley , as our friend , whose interesting biography we have attempted to illustrate in these notes , will readily admit , appears always to have esteemed a Christian the highest style of many and to have valued his scientific reputation chiefly as it might attract attention to his theological pursuits .

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    BfcmoiK ofthi | taj . Joseph Priestley , £ Z . D . F . R . # $ 9 . \ \

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1815, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1756/page/11/