Today’s Almanac-July 30, 2010
On July 30 and August 1, 1774 Joseph Priestley, a Dissenting clergyman, philosopher, and chemist conducted experiments that isolated what would later be called Oxygen in a laboratory built for him by his friend William Petty-FitzMaurice, Earl of Shelburne at his country estate Bowood House. Priestly had been conducting experiments on air for some time. Priestly focused the Sun’s rays on a glass vial containing mercuric oxide. The resulting heat released a new gas. Priestley observed that when a candle flame was exposed to the substance it grew brighter and that mice breathing it became more lively and alert. He reported that breathing it himself was not different than breathing ordinary air, but his heart and respiration seemed “lighter.” Although Priestley had isolated it, he did not fully understand what he had found. He continued to adhere to a version of the Phlogiston Theory that held that combustible materials were made of two parts-phlogiston given off when the substance was burned, and the dephlogisticated part was thought to be its true form. Priestley call his discovery dephlogisticated air. Before he could write up his experiments, he departed for a planned European tour in company with the Earl. In Paris Priestley met with the most famous scientist of the day, Antoine Lavoisier and duplicated his experiment for him and several colleagues. Lavoisier would later claim to have independently discovered oxygen earlier, but there is no evidence of it. And Lavoisier also probably received a letter from Swedish pharmacist Carl Wilhelm Scheele who had isolated the substance, which he called Fire Air, even earlier, in 1772 by burning nitric oxides and other compounds, which the Swede sent him on September 30, 1774. What Lavosier did do was to discount the Phlogiston theory and prove that the new gas was a basic element. This understanding is credited with being the foundation of modern chemistry. Meanwhile, Priestley had returned to Bowood and written up his notes which he sent in letters to members of the Royal Academy in March of the following year and his paper An Account of further Discoveries in Air was published in the Society’s journal, Philosophical Transactions. The tardy Scheele did not get his work published until A Chemical Treatise on Air and Fire, was released in 1777. By that time Lavoisier had also issued his research in his paper Sur la combustion en général published in 1777 and given the name Oxygen to the elemental gas. Priestly continued his experiments, including one that proved that Oxygen was necessary to respiration. He combined years of experiments on air, with historical perspectives and philosophical speculation in his great 6 volume opus Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air published between 1772 and 1786. Volume 2, published in 1775 contained the notes on his discovery. Priestley was born in 1733 to a Dissenting family in Yorkshire. Intending to become a minister, a nearly fatal illness caused him to doubt that he had experienced the expected personal conversion experience needed for salvation. Dissatisfied with Calvinist doctrine, he began to develop his own alternative theology. Meanwhile a private tutor introduced him to higher mathematics and science. Over time Priestley became convinced that God would not operate outside the laws of science and would manifest himself in observable nature. This led to a rejection of miracles including, eventually, the virgin birth, physical resurrection from the dead, and the divinity of Christ. After studying at a Dissenter academy at Dantry, Priestly entered the active ministry as a Rational Dissenter. After a shaky start Priestly became an established minister supplementing his meager income as a school master and giving lectures on science on the side. His first book was the revolutionary The Rudiments of English Grammar in 1761. During a six year stay in Warrington as a tutor of philosophy at a Dissenting academy he met and married Mary Wilkinson and began a family. During this period he authored admired histories of Christianity and of science. He also expounded on educational theory in his book Essay on a Course of Liberal Education for Civil and Active Life published in 1765. It is regarded as the most important work on English educational philosophy between John Locke and Edmund Spencer. His later Lectures on History and General Policy became the basis for courses of study on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1764 he undertook a massive history of electricity for which he consulted all of the active experimenters in the field, including the American Benjamin Franklin then in England as an agent for the Colonies. Franklin was impressed by the clergyman/educator and encouraged him to include his own experiments as well as reproducing those of others, in his work on electricity. Along with other prominent scientists, Franklin sponsored Priestley for membership in the Royal Academy. Their relationship would also serve Priestly well in later years. The 700 page The History and Present State of Electricity was published in 1767 and an edition for popular readers called Familiar Introduction to the Study of Electricity was issued the next year. Priestly was becoming a famous man, but decided in 1767 to return to the active ministry in Leeds where the congregation was not happy with his growing heresy. He became friends and collaborator with a radical Anglican cleric, Theophilus Lindsey whose views both mirrored and influenced his own. Despite isolation from his own congregation and particularly in light of stepped up attacks from those dissenters who took up Methodism, Priestley decided to expound on his religious views in a major new work, the three volume Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion, which laid out the basis of what would become English Unitarianism published 1772-’77. The fourth part of the Institutes, An History of the Corruptions of Christianity, became so long that he was issued it separately in 1782. Meanwhile Priestley happily engaged in pamphlet disputations with both orthodox Anglicans, and Methodists and other evangelical dissenters. He also began to turn his attention to politics, in which he took a decided Whig position. He entered the fray in defense of radical Dissenters from increasing government suppression. Essay on the First Principles of Government, a vital early work of modern liberal political theory was published in 1767. He was soon disputing on less an authority than William Blackstone over his claim that Dissenters could not be loyal citizens and that holding Dissenting worship was a criminal. He also continued to conduct scientific investigations, modeling the practicality of his friend Franklin. In 1772 he published The History and Present State of Discoveries Relating to Vision, Light and Colours (known usually as Optics) was poorly received and the cost of his research put Priestley, who was receiving dwindling support, in financial difficulties. Directions for Impregnating Water with Fixed Air was a pamphlet on how to make soda water, an innovation that he did not personally exploit but which soon made J. J. Schweppe a fortune. Franklin and others persuaded a rising Whig star, Lord Shellburn to hire him as a tutor for his children and companion/advisor to himself. Priestley and his family left his unhappy Leeds pulpit for Bowood House, where he had plenty of time to dedicate himself to the experiments that led to the isolation of oxygen. He also had time to write on philosophical and metaphysical topics. He published several pamphlets denying a mind-body duality and maintaining that materialism and determinism could be reconciled with a belief in God. Priestley supported Lindsey’s decision to form a new denomination in 1774. He attended Lindsey’s London chapel when he was in the city and occasionally preached there himself. His written defense of scathing attacks on Lindsey, Letter to a Layman, on the Subject of the Rev. Mr. Lindsey's Proposal for a Reformed English Church earned him a claim to be a co-founder of English Unitarianism. In 1779 Priestley relationship with Shellburn ruptured, either because the Earl’s new wife could not get along with Mary Priestley or, more likely, because Shellburn was becoming worried about being associated with his ever more controversial tutor. In 1782 Earl Shellburn would become Prime Minister on a policy of peace and reconciliation with the United States. Priestley decided to return to active ministry, accepting a pulpit in Birmingham. He happily took a part in the local, progressive Lunar Society, a sort of philosophical club, and continued to both experiment and publish in addition to his clerical duties. He spent much of the decade fruitlessly defending the Phlogiston Theory and disputing Lavoisier’s new chemistry. Despite this blind spot, he continued to be productive and conducted experiments that eventually lead John Dalton and Thomas Graham to formulate the kinetic theory of gases. But through the decade he was increasingly involved in theological controversies that became enmeshed in fears of the excess of the French Revolution. An History of Early Opinions concerning Jesus Christ, compiled from Original Writers, proving that the Christian Church was at first Unitarian scandalized the nation as did bold claims that Reformation had failed utterly to reform the Church and harsh language that equated the growth of Unitarianism to laying grains of gun powder “…under the old building of error and superstition, which a single spark may hereafter inflame, so as to produce an instantaneous explosion…” That kind of inflammatory language put off previous Whig supporters of loosening restrictions on Dissenting worship, including William Pitt (the Younger) and Edmund Burke. When they voted against reform in Parliament, Priestly responded with scathing pamphlets of “Letters” to each man. Burke, in particular, leveled all of his considerable rhetorical skills back against Priestley, Unitarians, and even science itself. Priestley, however would not be deterred and only stepped up his support for the French Revolution. In July 1792 a mob which historians now believe was abetted by local authorities and encourage, sub rosa, by the Crown, attacked a dinner in commemoration of the Storming of the Bastile that had been organized by Priestley and his friends. At the last minute Priestly had been warned of the danger and stayed away. The mob rampaged for three days and burned both Priestley’s chapel and his home which contained his laboratory, an irreplaceable library, and scientific notes. The family lost all of their possessions and were forced into hiding for several days until they could be spirited away to safety in London. For three years Priestley lived in Hackney, Middlesex where wealthy Dissenters contributed to the family’s upkeep and Priestley served a local chapel. He campaigned unsuccessfully for government recompense for his losses and continued defiantly to issue controversial pamphlets, including one blasting the Birmingham mob. Around the country he was burned in effigy along with Thomas Paine and political cartoons regularly attacked him. Friends in high places, including his associates at the Royal Academy, began disassociating himself. When he was elected, without his knowledge or permission, to the French National Convention from three separate constituencies, his situation became untenable. The Priestley family departed for America a scant 5 weeks before “radicals” were swept up on the order of William Pitt to be subjected to trials for treason. Had Priestley not left, he would surely have been arrested. The family arrived in New York in 1794 and were entertained and celebrated by Republican Clubs who regarded him as a hero and reviled by Federalists who saw him as a dangerous revolutionary. Priestley, however, was determined to avoid partisan controversy in his new country. He was welcomed to Philadelphia by Dr. Benjamin Rush who arranged for him to preach at the city’s Universalist Church. Later he helped establish the continent’s first explicitly Unitarian congregation in the city, although he turned down the invitation to fill the pulpit. Instead the family moved to rural Northumberland, Pennsylvania. There Priestley quietly mourned the death of one son and his beloved wife. He set up a laboratory and continued experiments, but was hampered by not being able to get the latest scientific information from war torn Europe. He endured the published attacks of Federalist pamphleteer William Cobbett who sought to discredit Priestley’s friend Thomas Jefferson by attacking him as an agent of the French Revolution. Despite it, Jefferson stood by Priestley, and consulted with him on establishing the University of Virginia. Priestley also established an academy for local youths in his home. He enjoyed the support of the American Philosophical Association. After Jefferson’s election to the Presidency. Priestley congratulated him and confessed, “it is now only that I can say I see nothing to fear from the hand of power, the government under which I live being for the first time truly favourable to me” in the dedication of his final theological work, General History of the Christian Church. He did not enjoy it for long. Priestley fell ill in 1801 and never fully recovered. He died February 6, 1804 at the age of 71.