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Hence the stars twinkle most when the night is darkest, and do not twinkle through telescopes, as observed by Musschenbroeck; and it will afterwards be seen why this twinkling is sometimes of different colours when the object is very bright, as Mr. Melvill observed in looking at Sirius. For the opinions of others on this subject, see Dr. Priestley's valuable History of Light and Colours, p. 494.
He has been occasionally employed as a bully at elections by the Tory party, and he may serve us in the same capacity. The fellow comes of a good stock; I heard him say that his father headed the High Church mob, who sacked and burnt Priestley's house at Birmingham towards the end of the last century." "A disgraceful affair," said I.
Both in the United States and in England this attitude was still common up till nearly the middle of the century, and instances could easily be found later still. The miraculous element was thus retained, though as we have seen as early as in Priestley's case there was a tendency to eliminate some part of the supernatural.
The poorest of it is not without some flavor of life, and at its best it is transcendent. A notable value lies in its power to stimulate. This power is very marked in Priestley's case, where the self-delineated portrait is of a man who met and overcame enormous difficulties. He knew poverty and calumny, both brutal things.
The unspotted purity of Priestley's life, the strictness of his performance of every duty, his transparent sincerity, the unostentatious and deep-seated piety which breathes through all his correspondence, are in themselves a sufficient refutation of the hypothesis, invented by bigots to cover uncharitableness, that such opinions as his must arise from moral defects.
But it seems to have been Priestley's feeling that he was a man and a citizen before he was a philosopher, and that the duties of the two former positions are at least as imperative as those of the latter. These men are the Carnots who organise victory for truth, and they are, at least, as important as the generals who visibly fight her battles in the field.
The great history of the Middle Ages, which in the words of its author describes "the triumph of barbarism and religion," had been completed before Priestley's Lectures appeared, and it is remarkable that he takes no account of it, though it might seem to be a work with which a theory of Progress must come to terms.
In the same letter in which these observations occur, Telford alluded to the disgraceful riots at Birmingham, in the course of which Dr. Priestley's house and library were destroyed.
Priestley's Lectures on the Truth of the Jewish and Christian Revelation; 1794. Undoubtedly, also, our Saviour recognises the prophetic character of many of their ancient writers. So far, therefore, we are bound as Christians to go.
For all practical purposes, however, it is enough that man may visibly improve his condition in the course of a century or so. And, if the picture of the state of things in Priestley's time, which I have just drawn, have any pretence to accuracy, I think it must be admitted that there has been a considerable change for the better.
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