Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 1, 2025
It appears to be an indication that we are reaching the crisis of the battle, or rather of the long series of battles, which have been fought over education in a campaign which began long before Priestley's time, and will probably not be finished just yet.
The "evident marks of dissatisfaction" which Priestley says he first perceived in his patron in 1778, may well have arisen from the peer's not unnatural uneasiness as to what his domesticated, but not tamed, philosopher might write next, and what storm might thereby he brought down on his own head; and it speaks very highly for Lord Shelburne's delicacy that, in the midst of such perplexities, he made not the least attempt to interfere with Priestley's freedom of action.
Opinions such as those I have quoted, respecting the duties and the responsibilities of governors, are the commonplaces of modern Liberalism; and Priestley's views on Ecclesiastical Establishments would, I fear, meet with but a cool reception, as altogether too conservative, from a large proportion of the lineal descendants of the people who taught their children to cry "Damn Priestley;" and with that love for the practical application of science which is the source of the greatness of Birmingham, tried to set fire to the doctor's house with sparks from his own electrical machine; thereby giving the man they called an incendiary and raiser of sedition against Church and King, an appropriately experimental illustration of the nature of arson and riot.
It would be an inspiring book, and its title might well be 'The Story of a Man of Character. Not the least of its virtues would consist in ample recognition of Joseph Priestley's unwavering confidence that all things were ordered for the best; and then of his piety, which prompted him to say, as he looked back upon his life: 'I am thankful to that good Providence which always took more care of me than ever I took of myself.
It is difficult to say whether Priestley's philosophical, political, or theological views were most responsible for the bitter hatred which was borne to him by a large body of his country-men, and which found its expression in the malignant insinuations in which Burke, to his everlasting shame, indulged in the House of Commons.
Isabella was delighted with the idea of filling up a small biographical chart, which resembled Priestley's; she was impatient also to draw the map of the world upon a small silk balloon, which could be filled with common air, or folded up flat at pleasure. Matilda, after much hesitation, said she had decided in her mind, just as they were going out of the shop.
After Priestley's discovery, a one-inch "rubber" sold for three shillings, or about seventy-five cents, but artists were glad to pay even that price, because their work was made so much easier. In 1800 Brazil was the only country manufacturing rubber articles, and her best market soon proved to be North America.
Lavoisier saw the great importance of Priestley's discovery; he repeated Priestley's experiment, and concluded that the air, or gas, which he refers to in his Laboratory Journal as "l'air dephlogistique de M. Priestley" was nothing else than the purest portion of the air we breathe. He prepared this "air" and burned various substances in it.
This is the most charitable way in which I can reconcile the following account which, as Eusebius, the contemporary and historian of Constantine, says, was stated under the solemnity of an oath. For a full account of this extraordinary story. See the 2d vol. of Dr. Priestley's Church History, per. 7, sec. 9.
Ibid. x. 79, 142. See also Deontology, i. 298-302, where Bentham speaks of discovering the phrase in Priestley's Essay on Government in 1768. Priestley says (p. 17) that 'the good and happiness of the members, that is of the majority of the members, of any state is the great standard by which everything relating to that state must be finally determined. So Le Mercier de la Rivière says, in 1767, that the ultimate end of society is assurer le plus grand bonheur possible
Word Of The Day
Others Looking