Joseph Priestley and Dissent - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley, FRS was an 18th-century English theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator, and political theorist who published over 150 works...

(March 13, 1733 (old style

Julian calendar

The Julian calendar began in 45 BC as a reform of the Roman calendar by Julius Caesar. It was chosen after consultation with the astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria and was probably designed to approximate the tropical year .The Julian calendar has a regular year of 365 days divided into 12 months...

) – February 8, 1804) was a British natural philosopher, political theorist

Political philosophy

Political philosophy is the study of such topics as liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it...

, clergyman, theologian, and educator. He was one of the most influential Dissenters

English Dissenters

English Dissenters were Christians who separated from the Church of England in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.They originally agitated for a wide reaching Protestant Reformation of the Established Church, and triumphed briefly under Oliver Cromwell....

of the late 18th-century.

A member of marginalized religious groups throughout his life and a proponent of what was called "rational Dissent," Priestley advocated religious toleration

Religious toleration

Toleration is "the practice of deliberately allowing or permitting a thing of which one disapproves. One can meaningfully speak of tolerating, ie of allowing or permitting, only if one is in a position to disallow”. It has also been defined as "to bear or endure" or "to nourish, sustain or preserve"...

(challenging even William Blackstone

William Blackstone

Sir William Blackstone KC SL was an English jurist, judge and Tory politician of the eighteenth century. He is most noted for writing the Commentaries on the Laws of England. Born into a middle class family in London, Blackstone was educated at Charterhouse School before matriculating at Pembroke...

), helped Theophilus Lindsey

Theophilus Lindsey

Theophilus Lindsey was an English theologian and clergyman who founded the first avowedly Unitarian congregation in the country, at Essex Street Chapel.-Life:...

found the Unitarian

Unitarianism

Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....

church and promoted the repeal of the Test

Test Act

The Test Acts were a series of English penal laws that served as a religious test for public office and imposed various civil disabilities on Roman Catholics and Nonconformists...

and Corporation Acts

Corporation Act 1661

The Corporation Act of 1661 is an Act of the Parliament of England . It belongs to the general category of test acts, designed for the express purpose of restricting public offices in England to members of the Church of England....

in the 1780s. As the foremost British expounder of providentialism

Providentialism

Providentialism is a belief that God's will is evident in all occurrences. It can further be described as a belief that the power of God is so complete that humans cannot equal His abilities, or fully understand His plan...

, he argued for extensive civil rights, believing that individuals could bring about progress and eventually the Millennium

Millennialism

Millennialism , or chiliasm in Greek, is a belief held by some Christian denominations that there will be a Golden Age or Paradise on Earth in which "Christ will reign" for 1000 years prior to the final judgment and future eternal state...

. Priestley's religious beliefs were integral to his metaphysics as well as his politics and he was the first philosopher to "attempt to combine theism, materialism, and determinism," a project that has been called "audacious and original."

Defender of Dissenters and political philosopher

Priestley claimed throughout his life that politics did not interest him and that he did not participate in it. What appeared to others as political arguments were for Priestley always, at their root, religious arguments. Many of what we would call Priestley's political writings were aimed at supporting the repeal of the Test

Test Act

The Test Acts were a series of English penal laws that served as a religious test for public office and imposed various civil disabilities on Roman Catholics and Nonconformists...

and Corporation Acts

Corporation Act 1661

, a political issue that had its foundation in religion.

Between 1660 and 1665, Parliament passed a series of laws that restricted the rights of dissenters: they could not hold political office, teach school, serve in the military or attend Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

and Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

unless they ascribed to the thirty-nine Articles

Thirty-Nine Articles

The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion are the historically defining statements of doctrines of the Anglican church with respect to the controversies of the English Reformation. First established in 1563, the articles served to define the doctrine of the nascent Church of England as it related to...

of the Church of England

Church of England

The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

. In 1689, a Toleration Act

Act of Toleration 1689

The Act of Toleration was an act of the English Parliament , the long title of which is "An Act for Exempting their Majestyes Protestant Subjects dissenting from the Church of England from the Penalties of certaine Lawes".The Act allowed freedom of worship to Nonconformists who had pledged to the...

was passed that restored some of these rights, if dissenters subscribed to 36 of the 39 articles (Catholics and Unitarians

Unitarianism

were excluded), but not all Dissenters were willing to accept this compromise and many refused to conform

Nonconformism

Nonconformity is the refusal to "conform" to, or follow, the governance and usages of the Church of England by the Protestant Christians of England and Wales.- Origins and use:...

. Throughout the 18th century Dissenters were persecuted and the laws against them were erratically enforced. Dissenters continually petitioned Parliament to repeal the Test and Corporation Acts, claiming that the laws made them second-class citizens. The situation worsened in 1753 after the passage of Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act

Marriage Act 1753

The Marriage Act 1753, full title "An Act for the Better Preventing of Clandestine Marriage", popularly known as Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act , was the first statutory legislation in England and Wales to require a formal ceremony of marriage. It came into force on 25 March 1754...

which stipulated that all marriages must be performed by Anglican ministers; some refused to perform Dissenting weddings at all.

Priestley's friends urged him to publish a work on the injustices borne by Dissenters, a topic to which he had already alluded in his Essay on a Course of Liberal Education for Civil and Active Life
Essay on a Course of Liberal Education for Civil and Active Life
Essay on a Course of Liberal Education for Civil and Active Life is an educational treatise by the 18th-century British polymath Joseph Priestley....

(1765). The result was Priestley's Essay on the First Principles of Government
Essay on the First Principles of Government
Essay on the First Principles of Government is an early work of modern liberal political theory by 18th-century British polymath Joseph Priestley.-Genesis of work:...

, which Priestley's major modern biographer calls his "most systematic political work," in 1768. The book went through three English editions and was translated into Dutch

Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

. Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism...

credited it with inspiring his "greatest happiness principle." The Essay on Government is not strictly utilitarian, however; like all of Priestley's works, it is infused with the belief that society is progressing towards perfection. Although much of the text rearticulates John Locke's

John Locke

John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...

arguments from his Two Treatises on Government (1689), it also makes a useful distinction between political and civil rights and argues for protection of extensive civil rights. He distinguishes between a private and a public sphere of governmental control; education and religion, in particular, he maintains, are matters of private conscience and should not be administered by the state. As Kramnick states, "Priestley's fundamental maxim of politics was the need to limit state interference on individual liberty." For early liberals

Liberalism

Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

like Priestley and Jefferson, the "defining feature of liberal politics" was its emphasis on the separation of church and state

Separation of church and state

The concept of the separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state....

. In a statement that articulates key elements of early liberalism and anticipates utilitarian arguments, Priestley wrote:

It must necessarily be understood, therefore, that all people live in society for their mutual advantage; so that the good and happiness of the members, that is the majority of the members of any state, is the great standard by which every thing relating to that state must finally be determined.

Priestley acknowledged that revolution was necessary at times but believed that Britain had already had its only necessary revolution in 1688

Glorious Revolution

The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, is the overthrow of King James II of England by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau...

, although his later writings would suggest otherwise. Priestley's later radicalism emerged from his belief that the British government was infringing upon individual freedom. Priestley would repeatedly return to these themes throughout his career, particularly when defending the rights of Dissenters.

Critic of William Blackstone's Commentaries

In another attempt to champion the rights of Dissenters, Priestley defended their constitutional rights against the attacks of William Blackstone

William Blackstone

, an eminent legal theorist. Blackstone's Commentaries, fast becoming the standard reference for legal interpretation, stated that dissent from the Church of England was a crime and argued that Dissenters could not be loyal subjects. Furious, Priestley lashed out with his Remarks on Dr. Blackstone's Commentaries (1769), correcting Blackstone's grammar, his history and his interpretation of the law. Blackstone, chastened, replied in a pamphlet and altered his Commentaries in subsequent editions; he rephrased the offending passages but still described Dissent as a crime.

Founder of Unitarianism

When Parliament rejected the Feather's Tavern petition in 1772, which would have released Dissenters from subscribing to the thirty-nine articles

Thirty-Nine Articles

, many Dissenting ministers, as William Paley

William Paley

William Paley was a British Christian apologist, philosopher, and utilitarian. He is best known for his exposition of the teleological argument for the existence of God in his work Natural Theology, which made use of the watchmaker analogy .-Life:Paley was Born in Peterborough, England, and was...

wrote, "could not afford to keep a conscience." Priestley's friend from Leeds, Theophilus Lindsey

Theophilus Lindsey

Theophilus Lindsey was an English theologian and clergyman who founded the first avowedly Unitarian congregation in the country, at Essex Street Chapel.-Life:...

, decided to try. He gave up his church, sold his books so that he would have money to live on and established the first Unitarian chapel in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. The radical publisher Joseph Johnson

Joseph Johnson (publisher)

Joseph Johnson was an influential 18th-century London bookseller and publisher. His publications covered a wide variety of genres and a broad spectrum of opinions on important issues...

helped him find a building, which became known as Essex Street Chapel

Essex Street Chapel

Essex Street Chapel, also known as Essex Church, is a Unitarian place of worship in London. It was the first church in England set up with this doctrine, and was established at a time when Dissenters still faced legal threat...

. Priestley's patron at the time, Lord Shelburne

William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne

William Petty-FitzMaurice, 1st Marquess of Lansdowne, KG, PC , known as The Earl of Shelburne between 1761 and 1784, by which title he is generally known to history, was an Irish-born British Whig statesman who was the first Home Secretary in 1782 and then Prime Minister 1782–1783 during the final...

, promised that he would keep the church out of legal difficulties (barrister John Lee

John Lee (Attorney-General)

John Lee KC was an English lawyer, politician, and law officer of the Crown. He assisted in the early days of Unitarianism in England.-Life:...

, later Attorney-General, also helped), and Priestley and many others hurried to raise money for Lindsey.

On 17 April 1774, the chapel had its first service. Lindsey had designed his own liturgy, of which many were critical. Priestley rushed to his defense with Letter to a Layman, on the Subject of the Rev. Mr. Lindsey's Proposal for a Reformed English Church (1774), claiming that only the form of worship had been altered and attacking those who only followed religion as a fashion. Priestley attended the church regularly while living in Calne

Calne

Calne is a town in Wiltshire, southwestern England. It is situated at the northwestern extremity of the North Wessex Downs hill range, a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty....

with Shelburne and even occasionally preached there. He continued to support institutionalized Unitarianism after he moved to Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

in 1780, writing several Defenses of Unitarianism and encouraging the foundation of new Unitarian chapels throughout Britain and the United States. He also compiled and edited a liturgy and hymnbook for the new denomination.

Religious activist

In 1787, 1789 and 1790, Dissenters again tried to repeal the Test

Test Act

The Test Acts were a series of English penal laws that served as a religious test for public office and imposed various civil disabilities on Roman Catholics and Nonconformists...

and Corporation Acts

Corporation Act 1661

. Although initially it looked as if they might succeed, by 1790, with the fears of the French revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

looming in the minds of many members of Parliament, few were swayed by Charles James Fox's

Charles James Fox

Charles James Fox PC , styled The Honourable from 1762, was a prominent British Whig statesman whose parliamentary career spanned thirty-eight years of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and who was particularly noted for being the arch-rival of William Pitt the Younger...

arguments for equal rights. Political cartoons, one of the most effective and popular media of the time, skewered the Dissenters and Priestley specifically. In the midst of these trying times, it was the betrayal of William Pitt

William Pitt the Younger

William Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...

and Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....

that most angered Priestley and his friends; they had expected the two men's support and instead both argued vociferously against the repeal. Priestley wrote a series of Letters to William Pitt and Letters to Burke in an attempt to persuade them otherwise, but to no avail. These publications unfortunately also inflamed the populace against him.

In its propaganda against the "radicals," Pitt's administration argued that Priestley and other Dissenters wanted to overthrow the government. Dissenters who had supported the French revolution came under increasing suspicion as skepticism over the revolution's benefits and ideals grew. When in 1790 Richard Price

Richard Price

Richard Price was a British moral philosopher and preacher in the tradition of English Dissenters, and a political pamphleteer, active in radical, republican, and liberal causes such as the American Revolution. He fostered connections between a large number of people, including writers of the...

, the other leading Dissenting minister in Britain at the time, gave a rousing sermon supporting the French revolutionaries and comparing them to English revolutionaries of 1688

Glorious Revolution

, Burke responded with his famous Reflections on the Revolution in France
Reflections on the Revolution in France
Reflections on the Revolution in France , by Edmund Burke, is one of the best-known intellectual attacks against the French Revolution...

. Priestley rushed to the defense of his friend and of the revolutionaries, publishing one of the many responses, along with Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine

Thomas "Tom" Paine was an English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States...

and Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft was an eighteenth-century British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book...

, that became part of the "Revolution Controversy

Revolution Controversy

The Revolution Controversy was a British debate over the French Revolution, lasting from 1789 through 1795. A pamphlet war began in earnest after the publication of Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France , which surprisingly supported the French aristocracy...

." Paradoxically, it is Burke, the secular statesman, who argued against science and maintained that religion should be the basis of civil society while Priestley, the Dissenting minister, argued that religion could not provide the basis for society and should be restricted to one's private life.

Political adviser to Lord Shelburne

Priestley also served as a kind of political adviser to Lord Shelburne while he working for him as a tutor and librarian; he gathered information for him on parliamentary issues and served as a conduit of information for Dissenting and American interests. Priestley published several political works during these years, most of which were focused on the rights of dissenters, such as An Address to Protestant Dissenters . . . on the Approaching Election of Members of Parliament (1774). This pamphlet was published anonymously and Schofield calls it "the most outspoken of anything he ever wrote." Priestley called on Dissenters to vote against those in Parliament who had, by refusing to repeal the Test and Corporation Acts, denied them their rights. He wrote a second part dedicated to defending the rebelling American colonists at the behest of Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin

Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...

and John Fothergill

John Fothergill

John Fothergill may refer to:*John Fothergill , English physician and botanist*John Fothergill , English merchant*John Milner Fothergill...

. The pamphlets created a stir throughout Britain but the results of the election did not favor Shelburne's party.

Materialist philosopher and theologian

In a series of five major metaphysical works, all written between 1774 and 1778, Priestley laid out his materialist view of the world and tried "to defend Christianity by making its metaphysical framework more intelligible," even though such a position "entailed denial of free will and the soul." The first major work to address these issues was The Examination of Dr. Reid's Inquiry ... Dr. Beattie's Essay ... and Dr. Oswald's Appeal (1774). He challenged Scottish common-sense philosophy, which claimed that "common sense" trumped reason in matters of religion. Relying on Locke and Hartley's

David Hartley (philosopher)

David Hartley was an English philosopher and founder of the Associationist school of psychology. -Early life and education:...

associationism

Associationism

Associationism in philosophy refers to the idea that mental processes operate by the association of one state with its successor states.The idea is first recorded in Plato and Aristotle, especially with regard to the succession of memories....

, he argued strenuously against Reid's theory of mind

Philosophy of mind

Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness and their relationship to the physical body, particularly the brain. The mind-body problem, i.e...

and maintained that ideas did not have to resemble their referents in the world; ideas for Priestley were not pictures in the mind but rather causal associations. From these arguments, Priestley concluded that "ideas and objects must be of the same substance," a radically materialist view at the time. The book was popular and readers of all persuasions read it. Charles Lamb wrote to Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...

, recommending "that clear, strong, humorous, most entertaining piece of reasoning" and Priestley heard rumors that even Hume

David Hume

David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...

had read the work and "declared that the manner of the work was proper, as the argument was unanswerable."

When arguing for materialism in his Examination Priestley strongly suggested that there was no mind-body duality

Dualism (philosophy of mind)

In philosophy of mind, dualism is a set of views about the relationship between mind and matter, which begins with the claim that mental phenomena are, in some respects, non-physical....

. Such opinions shocked and angered many of his readers and reviewers who believed that for the soul

Soul

A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...

to exist, there had be a mind-body duality. In order to clarify his position he wrote Disquisitions relating to Matter and Spirit
Disquisitions relating to Matter and Spirit
Disquisitions relating to Matter and Spirit is a major work of metaphysics written by eighteenth-century British polymath Joseph Priestley and published by Joseph Johnson....

(1777), which claimed that both "matter" and "force" are active, and therefore that objects in the world and the mind must be made of the same substance. Priestley also argued that discussing the soul was impossible because it is made of a divine substance and humanity cannot gain access to the divine. He therefore denied the materialism of the soul while simultaneously claiming its existence. Although he buttressed his arguments with familiar scholarship and ancient authorities, including scripture, he was labeled an atheist. At least a dozen hostile refutations of the work were published by 1782.

Priestley continued this series of arguments in The Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity Illustrated
The Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity Illustrated
The Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity is one of the major metaphysical works of 18th-century British polymath Joseph Priestley.Between 1774 and 1778, while serving as an assistant to Lord Shelburne, Priestley wrote a series of five major metaphysical works, arguing for a materialist philosophy...

(1777); the text was designed as an "appendix" to the Disquisitions and "suggests that materialism and determinism are mutually supporting." Priestley explicitly stated that humans had no free will

Free will

"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...

: "all things, past, present, and to come, are precisely what the Author of nature really intended them to be, and has made provision for." His notion of "philosophical necessity," which he was the first to claim was consonant with Christianity, at times resembles absolute determinism

Determinism

Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...

; it is based on his understanding of the natural world and theology: like the rest of nature, man's mind is subject to the laws of causation, but because a benevolent God has created these laws, Priestley argued, the world as a whole will eventually be perfected. He argued that the associations made in a person's mind were a necessary product of their lived experience because Hartley's theory of associationism was analogous to natural laws such as gravity. Priestley contends that his necessarianism can be distinguished from fatalism

Fatalism

Fatalism is a philosophical doctrine emphasizing the subjugation of all events or actions to fate.Fatalism generally refers to several of the following ideas:...

and predestination

Predestination

Predestination, in theology is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God. John Calvin interpreted biblical predestination to mean that God willed eternal damnation for some people and salvation for others...

because it relies on natural law. Isaac Kramnick points out the paradox of Priestley's positions: as a reformer, he argued that political change was essential to human happiness and urged his readers to participate, but he also claimed in works such as Philosophical Necessity that humans have no free will. Philosophical Necessity influenced the 19th-century utilitarians John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...

and Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer was an English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era....

, who were drawn to its determinism. Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....

, entranced by Priestley's determinism but repelled by his reliance on observed reality, created a transcendental version of determinism that he claimed allowed liberty to the mind and soul.

In the last of his important books on metaphysics, Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever
Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever
Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever is a multi-volume series of books on metaphysics by eighteenth-century British polymath Joseph Priestley....

(1780), Priestley continues to defend his thesis that materialism and determinism can be reconciled with a belief in a God. The seed for this book had been sown during his trip to Paris with Shelburne. Priestley recalled in his Memoirs:

As I chose on all occasions to appear as a Christian, I was told by some of them [philosophes], that I was the only person they had ever met with, of whose understanding they had any opinion, who professed to believe Christianity. But on interrogating them on the subject, I soon found that they had given no proper attention to it, and did not really know what Christianity was ... Having conversed so much with unbelievers at home and abroad, I thought I should be able to combat their prejudices with some advantage, and with this view I wrote ... the first part of my ‘Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever’, in proof of the doctrines of a God and a providence, and ... a second part, in defence of the evidences [sic] of Christianity.

The text addresses those whose faith is shaped by books and fashion; Priestley draws an analogy between the skepticism of educated men and the credulity of the masses. He again argues for the existence of God using what Schofield calls "the classic argument from design ... leading from the necessary existence of a creator-designer to his self-comprehension, eternal existence, infinite power, omnipresence, and boundless benevolence." In the three volumes, Priestley discusses, among many other works, Baron d'Holbach's

Baron d'Holbach

Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach was a French-German author, philosopher, encyclopedist and a prominent figure in the French Enlightenment. He was born Paul Heinrich Dietrich in Edesheim, near Landau in the Rhenish Palatinate, but lived and worked mainly in Paris, where he kept a salon...

Systeme de la Nature
The System of Nature
The System of Nature or, the Laws of the Moral and Physical World is a work of philosophy by Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach . It was originally published under the name of Jean-Baptiste de Mirabaud, a deceased member of the French Academy of Science...

, often called the "bible of atheism

Atheism

Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...

." He claimed that d'Holbach's "energy of nature," though it lacked intelligence or purpose, was really a description of God. Priestley believed that David Hume's

David Hume

style in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion is a philosophical work written by the Scottish philosopher David Hume. Through dialogue, three fictional characters named Demea, Philo, and Cleanthes debate the nature of God's existence...

(1779) was just as dangerous as its ideas; he feared the open-endedness of the Humean dialogue.

External links

The Joseph Priestley Society
www.josephpriestley.com – Comprehensive site which includes a bibliography, links to related sites, images, information on manuscript collections, and other helpful information.

Full-text links

A General History of the Christian Church (full text from google books)
A History of the Corruptions of Christianity (full text from google books)
The Doctrines of Heathen Philosophy compared with those of Revelation (full text from google books)
Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion, Vol. 1 of 2 (full text from google books)
Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion, Vol. 2 of 2 (full text from google books)
An History of Early Opinions Concerning Jesus Christ, Vol. 1 (full text from google books)
An History of Early Opinions Concerning Jesus Christ, Vol. 2 (full text from google books)
An History of Early Opinions Concerning Jesus Christ, Vol. 3 (full text from google books)
An History of Early Opinions Concerning Jesus Christ, Vol. 4 (full text from google books)
A Free Address to Protestant Dissenters (full text from google books)

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