A Furious Freethinker

Perhaps the one thing that explains the man is his religious background, for his father was a Calvinist dissenter, and he grew up in that tough, conscientious tradition. He referred to himself as a “furious freethinker” on one occasion. His religion, ultimately that of a Unitarian who rejected the divinity of Christ, meant that he was excluded from education in the Anglican world of public schools and university education. The only universities in England at that time were Oxford and Cambridge, and those who could not subscribe to the 39 Articles of Religion, which required belief in the Holy Trinity, were excluded not only from taking a degree at the colleges but even from attending them. This restriction did not apply to Scotland’s five universities, and many English nonconformists made their way to Edinburgh in particular. But in England the dissenters themselves set up academies, and these offered a rigorous education even if they could not offer degrees.

Priestley went to Daventry Academy and consumed theology, philosophy, science, and languages. To a greater or a lesser extent he read or wrote Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Chaldee, and Syriac. And those were only the classical languages, for he also understood French, German, and Italian. And at the same time as he was learning, he was starting to write. It was said that Priestley wrote books faster than his readers could read them, and his many works must have consumed forests of trees. In his lifetime he published 150 books and pamphlets and at least 100 papers.

While still a student at Daventry he began his Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion. We should realize that in his time Priestley was regarded as a theologian, a philosopher, an educationalist, and even a historian as well as a scientist. Perhaps we should not call him a scientist, because the word was not devised until the 1830s, but there is no doubting his prodigious output of natural philosophy, physics, and chemistry. By many he was also perceived as a political agitator, a radical, and a thorough nuisance to the establishment. So what, simply, might we call him? In 2004 the magazine Prospect attempted to identify the top 100 British “public intellectuals” of the day. Among them were nine scientists, defining their activities in a fairly broad way. There seems little doubt that a list compiled in the 18th century would have included Priestley as a prime case of a public intellectual.

But let us be quantitative about this: what might be our performance indicator for assessing a public intellectual? Today, it might be the number of appearances on television chat shows. In Priestley’s time, may I suggest that it be judged by appearances in published caricatures? Priestley does well: he was a favorite target of cartoonists, and he was satirized on many occasions. True, he was far outnumbered by King George III, but the king could scarcely be described primarily as a public intellectual. Another performance indicator, though a posthumous one, might be to count the number of public statues erected to his honor. Priestley does well by this criterion, perhaps even exceeding Sir Isaac Newton.