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The choice of country was his own taste. The writings were the effects of his own zeal. In spite of his friend Dr. Priestley, he was a free agent.
Just, the iron energy of Danton, the caustic wit of Camille Desmoulins, and the sweet eloquence of Vergniaud found echoes in all lands, and nowhere more readily than in Great Britain, the ancient foe and rival of France. The celebrated Dr. Price, of London, and the still more distinguished Priestley, of Birmingham, spoke out boldly in defence of the great principles of the Revolution.
A little later Priestley discovered that "dephlogisticated air... is a principal element in the composition of acids, and may be extracted by means of heat from many substances which contain them.... It is likewise produced by the action of light upon green vegetables; and this seems to be the chief means employed to preserve the purity of the atmosphere."
He was also acquainted with the writings of Priestley and Wesley, and Jonathan Edwards; for the first of whom he entertained the deepest respect. Lamb's verses were always good, steady, and firm, and void of those magniloquent commonplaces which so clearly betray the immature writer. They were at no time misty nor inconsequent, but contained proof that he had reasoned out his idea.
After landing the ponies we steamed up to the sea-ice by Glacier Tongue, and from there, taking Priestley and Abbott, I went with letters to Hut Point, where the depôt party would call on their way back. Thus Scott came on Wednesday, February 22, to receive the news which was bound to occupy his thoughts, however resolutely he refused to allow it to interfere in any way with his plans.
Nor is such attempt at uniform conditions just to posterity; men have no natural right to judge for the future. Men are too ignorant to fix their own ideas as the basis of all action. Priestley could not escape entirely the bondage of past tradition; and the metaphysics which Bentham abhorred are scattered broadcast over his pages.
He had earned and desired repose, but never before had he encountered such exacting, important, and unremitting labor as immediately fell to his lot. Lexington and Concord fights had taken place a fortnight before he landed, and the news preceded him in Philadelphia by a few days only. Many feelings may be discerned in the brief note which he wrote on May 16 to Dr. Priestley:
There is a tradition in our Church, that before the Northumbrian rabble, at the instigation of Austin, attacked and massacred the presbyterian monks of Bangor, they had been allowed a good gorge of horseflesh and bitter ale. He! he! he! continued the man in black, 'what a fine spectacle to see such a mob, headed by a fellow like our friend the landlord, sack the house of another Priestley!
Priestley had never been taught to order himself lowly and reverently to all his betters; yet there was deeper pathos in the rude dignity of his reply than could have attended servility. "It s this way, Mr. Magomery I don't deny I got here in a sneakin' way. I feel it, Mr. Still, I'm here now.
We cheerfully accept these canons of philosophical inquiry; and it is just because no one substance is sufficient, in our estimation, to account for all the appearances, that we equally reject the "spiritualism" of Berkeley, who would resolve all phenomena into "mind," and the "materialism" of Priestley, who would resolve all phenomena into "matter."
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