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    Scotland . But we cannot think him happy in the specimens of analysis which he has left ; often ingenious , they are seldom complete ; they amount only to approximate solutions of the problem which he was encountering ; they frequently furnish valuable

    hints to the future inquirer and set him in the right track ; but in his eagerness to reach the object of his search , Dr . Priestley overleaps many needful steps of the process , or breaks off in the midst , and deems the task accomplished which a more careful thinking

    would feel to be only commenced . This disposition to post through a difficulty and see nothing in it , is especially apparent , we think , in his account of the idea of power , and in his attempt to explain the phenomena of memory ; and throughout his works it would be in vain to look for the piercing analysis of Brown or Mill , before whose gaze the most intricate and delicate of human

    emotions and the most evanescent trains of human ratiocination are arrested , and questioned , and made to marshal themselves in their true place , amid the nimble evolutions of the mind . His merits in the department of mental science consist less in the success with which he attacked its difficulties than the skill with

    which he multiplied its applications ; less in the light which he introduced into its interior recesses , than in the range of kindred subjects over which he spread its illumination . In his mind morals , history , religion appeared tinged with it , and thence adorned with greater dignity . Instances of this are to be found

    in his History of Early Opinions , ' his sermons * On Habitual Devotion , ' f On Habit , * ' On the Duty of not Living to Ourselves / and above all , in his Analogy of the Divine Dispensations ; ' an essay which may be regarded as perhaps the happiest effort of his mind , involving precisely that brief and simple

    exposition of a metaphysical principle with copiousness and magnitude of application , to which his powers were peculiarly adapted . There is , too , a solemnity in it , arising from the congeniality of its train of thought with all his faculties of intellect and soul , which

    is rarely perceptible in his writings . It is philosophy kindling itself into worship . Dr . Priestley ' s rank as a linguist and a critic may be inferred from the qualities which we have already ascribed or denied to him . The same fertilitv of association and love of analogy which him . Ihe same fertility of association and love of analogy which

    facilitated to him the acquisition of a foreign language up to a certain point , rendered his complete mastery of it almost impossible . He wanted the imperturbable patience , the nice eye for minute differences , the unwearied faith in the importance of an

    apparent trifle , which are requisite to the character of the accomplished philologist . His knowledge of the laws of thought rendered him a perspicuous interpreter of the theory of language ; and ., if the subject had been strongly ^ urged upon his attention , would perhaps have made him a successful student of philosophical etymology , would have enabled him to detect the relations

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    On the Life , Character , and Writings of Dr . Priestley . 85 *

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1833, page 85*, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2608/page/17/