DR. PRIESTLEY'S literary character may be viewed in the different lights of a natural philosopher, of a metaphysician, of an ecclesiastical historian, of a defender of religion in general, and of unitarianism in particular, and as an author in the wide field of miscellaneous literature. But there is another aspect in which he may be considered; the result of a few pages indeed, but of equal importance in my opinion with any or with all of these, viz. as a writer on the theory of politics: a subject in which the developement of a simple truth in such a manner as to impress it on the mind of the public, may influence to a boundless extent the happiness of millions. I well know the obloquy and the sarcasm attached to political reformers, and I am ready to acknowledge, it is possible that the melancholy theories of the present day, which judge of the future lot of mankind upon earth, from the history of past facts, may be too well founded; that war, pestilence and famine, and vice and misery in all its hideous forms may be necessary to counteract the over increase of the human species, and make up for the difference between the arithmetical progression of subsistence, and the geometrical ratio of accumulating population. Still the philosopher will have motives to labour in devising methods for the diminution and the cure of moral and physical cal evils, at least as well founded as those of a patient, who reasonably applies the known remedies for the disease by which he is oppressed.

THE principal source of objection to Dr. Priestley in England, certainly arose from his being a dissenter; from his opposition to the hierarchy, and to the preposterous alliance, between Church and State: an alliance, by which the contracting parties seem tacitly agreed to support the pretensions of each other, the one to keep the people in religious, and the other in civil bondage. His socinian doctrines in theology, and the heterodoxy of his metaphysical opinions, though they added much to the popular outcry raised against him, were not less obnoxious to the generality of Dissenters, than to the Clergy of the Church of England. Nor is it a slight proof of the integrity of his character, and his boldness in the pursuit of truth, that he did not hesitate to step forward the avowed advocate of opinions, which his intimate and most valuable friends, and the many who looked up to him as the ornament of the dissenting interest, regarded with sentiments of horror, as equally destructive of civil society and true religion.

The extreme difference observable between the apparent properties of animal and inanimate matter, easily led to the opinion of something more as necessary to thought, and the phenomena of mind, than mere juxta position of the elements, whereof our bodies are composed. The very antient opinion also of a state of existence after death, prevalent in the most uncivilized as well as enlightened states of society, confirmed this opinion of a separate and immortal part of the human system: for it was sufficiently evident, that no satisfactory hopes of a futurity after death, could be founded on the perishable basis of the human body.

Thus far the narrative is from my father's manuscript, and I regret extremely, with the reader, that It falls to my lot to give an account of the latter period of his valuable life.

I entertained hopes at one time, that he would have continued it himself; and he was frequently requested to do so, by me and many of his friends in the course of the year preceding his death. He had then nearly compleated all the literary works he had in view, he had arrived at that period of life when, in imitation of his friend Mr. Lindsey, he had determined not to preach again in public, and beyond which he probably would not have ventured to publish any work without first subjecting it to the inspection of some judicious friend.

He was requested also, in imitation of Courayer, to add at the close of his Memoirs a summary of his religious opinions. This would have counteracted the suspicions entertained by some, that they had undergone a considerable change since his coming to America; and it was thought by his friends, that such a brief and simple statement of all that appeared to him essential to the Christian belief, and the Christian character, would attract the attention of many readers previously indisposed to religion altogether, from not understanding its real nature, and judging of it only from the corrupt, adulterated, and complicated state, in which it is professed in all countries called Christian.