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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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Untitled Article
phitheatre of nations , receives an answer of glorious acclaim to its cry of plaudite ? while originality in science , in theology , and even in political philosophy , appreciable at first only by schools and sects of men , waits for justice till the school or the sect
becomes , in numbers and intelligence , co-extensive with society at large . Scott and Byron have received the homage of their own times ; but such men as Priestley or Bentham must wait the revolutions of opinion , and the regeneration of social institutions , before the due rites of honour are enacted over their graves .
Posterity , like Providence , rewards men according to their deeds . To their tribunal oblivion must give up its dead . What place will tlien be allotted to Dr . Priestley , among the benefactors of mankind , we will not presume to decide ; sure we are it will be no mean one . And , in the meanwhile , it is evident that the time is approaching for a correct and final estimate of his merits .
His contemporaries , with their indiscriminate praise or censure , have , for the most part , retired from the scene ; and a new generation , partly educated by his writings , and able to bear testimony to their influence , has stepped into their place . The physical science to which , for many years , he brought his annual tribute of discovery , has advanced another stage ; and , apart from all rivalry and controversy , can afford to be just to his memory , and to devote a chapter of true history to its own historian . The
philosophy of mind is deserting the favourites , whose contempt was too strong for his living fame , and ranks among its just masters men who expound principles akin to his . In some measure his political sympathies seem to have been bequeathed to this generation , and the chains have been broken , for numbering whose links he became an outcast and an exile . And in theology he has
had successors , who have , in some measure , diverted from him the odium which he was wont to bear exclusively : theology , however , is singularly tardy in its justice , and a fame locked up in theology is scarcely more hopeful than an estate locked up in Chancery . For a fair estimate of this extraordinary man , the advantages afforded by the complexion of the times are enhanced by the new
biographical materials which have been laid before us by Mr . Rutt . These materials consist of Dr . Priestley ' s letters to his most intimate friends , extending in an almost unbroken series
through the greater part of his life , and appended by the editor to the several sections of his autobiography . We were disposed at firat to wish that more selection had been used , and that many letters , which convey no new impression of the writer ' s character , no indication of the spirit of his times , had been omitted ; and that , notwithstanding the amount of interesting small talk which
is crowded into the notes , they had been occasionally in a less excursive style of illustration . But in both these particulars it is possible that the editor may have consulted the public taste as well aa his own vast stock of dissenting lore . His errors ( if
Untitled Article
ty 0 On the Life , Character , and IVorks of Dr . Priestley .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1833, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2606/page/20/
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