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Joseph Priestley, 1733-1804
Joseph Priestley, probably the greatest English scientist since Newton, was also a utillitarian social philosopher.
Born near Leeds and educated at dissenting academies, Joseph Priestley acquired a "modern" education in philosophy, science and history. After graduating from Daventry Academy, he set himself up as a Presbyterian minister and schoolmaster. In 1761, he became a tutor at Warrington Academy in Lancashire.
Priestley's experience as a teacher led him to write his 1765 book promoting the replacement of classical education with a more modern curriculum, based on science, arts, modern languages and history. His 1765 Chart of Biography won him a doctorate in laws from the University of Edinburgh. His 1767 book on the history of electricity was one of the most interesting defenses of intellectual history as a discipline. (interestingly, it was in the course of drawing the pictures for this book that stumbled on the fact that India rubber could erase lead pencil marks.)
In 1766, Priestley met Benjamin Franklin who awakened his interest in electricity. In 1766, Priestley discovered the Law of Inverse Squares, i.e. that the attraction or repulsion between two electric charges is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. In this manner, he set the stage for Coulomb. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society that year.
In 1767, Priestley moved back to Leeds. Living next door to a brewery, he took up an interest in gases. In 1772, he created carbon dioxide (and invented soda water) and nitrous oxide (laughing gas) in his laboratory. In 1774, he revolutionized chemistry by isolating oxygen, thereby shattering the phlogiston theory (as Lavoisier had to show; Priestley continued to insist that they were compatible). He also went on to study the properties of ammonia, sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide. Priestley was also the first to identify plant respiration and photosynthesis.
But for all his scientific contributions, Priestley was also an important social philosopher. Priestley was a firm believer in free will and the possibility of human perfectibility through good education. Together with Richard Price, he formed the nucleus of what was then called the "Rational Dissenters". They believed that Reason and Necessity, coupled with Liberty and Freedom, were the guide to all human progress and social reform.
The Rational Dissenters also acquired a reputation as cold-hearted social reformers. They laid the blame for social ills like poverty and unemployment entirely on the educational deficiency and/or a corrupt moral character of the poor themselves. They refused to recognize that destitution and desperation might have wider causes. Priestley was opposed to virtually any social safety nets -- such as the Poor Laws -- believing that the discipline of hunger and the absence of distractions (ale-houses and the like) would generate discipline and improve the morals of the poor. Detested by the masses for his heartlessness towards the poor, Priestley was often burnt in effigy.
Priestley's 1768 book argued that the function of government was to promote "general happiness" and that this was the only standard by which the evaluate policy. In his words:
"The good and happiness of the members, that is the majority of the members of the state, is the great standard by which every thing relating to that state must finally be determined." (Priestley, 1768)
Priestley's book made a deep impression of Jeremy Bentham, who drew upon it to develop his own utilitarian doctrine. Priestley and Bentham were introduced to each other by the Earl of Shelbourne.
In practical terms, the Rational Dissenters were strong proponents of parliamentary reform -- not on moral, but rather on historical grounds. He was one of the developers of the myth that radical democracy had flourished in Saxon England before being displaced by Norman tyranny. The whole progress of English history, he argued, had been characterized by a gradual recovery of these ancient rights. Universal male suffrage was manifest destiny. It was also on these grounds that Priestley (1774) attacked the British policy in America, arguing that the colonists were just reclaiming their traditional rights as freeborn Englishmen.
In 1773, Priestley took up an appointment in the Earl of Shelbourne's household, traveling with him to Europe (where he met Lavoisier). In 1780, with a secure annuity, Priestley set himself up in a ministry at Birmingham. It was during this time that Priestley became heavily engaged with the reformist Lunar Society with other Rational Dissenters.
Throughout his life, Joseph Priestley dabbled in theology, eventually becoming one of the primary promulgators of Unitarianism, a dissenting religious movement that saw God as one being, eschewing Trinitarian Christian dogma and coming close to denying the divinity of Christ and the immortality of the soul. Priestley's tracts on religion (1777, 1778, 1782, 1784) were severely criticized by both the established and dissenting churches. Although accused of atheism, Priestley was actually closer to theistic "natural religion". He had defended the doctrine from David Hume's skepticism in his 1774 Letters. The rationalist, ultra-liberal theology of Unitarianism attracted many Enlightenment deists, and propagated by Priestley, would grow in popularity in the 19th Century. Among economists, Jeremy Bentham, Harriet Martineau and John Stuart Mill and later W. Stanley Jevons and Philip Wicksteed were notable Unitarians.
Influenced by Tom Paine, Priestley (1791) defended the French Revolution on the grounds that the republicans were ushering in the government by Reason. This was the last straw. Goaded by Tory politicians, Priestley's house and chapel were torn down by a Birmingham mob in 1791. He moved to London, but found the environment very hostile -- especially after being made an honorary citizen of France and elected to the National Assembly. As the French Revolution took a turn for the worst, Priestley decided to emigrate to America in 1794. He settled down in Northumberland, Pennsylvania, joining his two sons and his disciple Thomas Cooper, who had gone ahead of him. Although seeking a quiet life, Priestley was greatly sought after by American politicians like Thomas Jefferson, and took the time to found the first Unitarian church in America.
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