Joseph Priestley Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) was an English intellectual who wrote more than 150 books as well as numerous letters and sermons in the various disciplines of history, literature, theology, moral philosophy, politics, rhetoric, and physics. His discovery of oxygen and writings on electricity and chemistry gave him entrance to the Royal Society in 1766. He wrote comprehensive treatises about science, such as The History and Present State of Electricity (1767).

In addition to being a renowned scientist, Priestley was a rational dissenter. While a member of the “Club of Honest Whigs,” an eighteenth-century discussion group of supporters of the American colonists, Priestley wrote his central political work, Essay on the First Principles of Government (1768). In Essay, which has been said to come directly from English philosopher John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government (1689), Priestly argued for religious liberty, universal toleration, and separation of church and state. He also wrote A Free Address to Protestant Dissenters (1768), in which he argued for broader religious tolerance than Locke had advocated. Unlike Locke, Priestley believed atheists should be tolerated, and he rejected Locke’s view of the integral relationship between civil and ecclesiastical authority. Priestley adopted the Socinian belief that Jesus Christ was only human, and, like most rational dissenters, he espoused the centrality of scripture and human reason

Motivated by his opposition to Scottish theologist John Brown’s argument in Essays on Shaftesbury’s Characteristics (1751) that government should play an important role in the moral formation and education of children, Priestley wrote An Essay on a Course of Liberal Education (1765), advocating civil liberty and government nonintervention, based on his belief in individual intellectual freedom. Making a distinction between civil liberty and political liberty, Priestley viewed society as an aggregate of individuals rather than a community. The role of civil power was to ensure individual freedom, which would result in the common good. However, his strong belief in civil liberty did not translate into political liberty. Priestley thought voting should be based on wealth, and he did not believe that equality and political participation were essential principles for reform.

Priestley’s early and lifelong influence from English philosopher David Hartley’s Observations on Man (1748) came to fruition in Priestley’s conflation of matter and spirit. The multiple volumes of Priestley’s The Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion were published between 1772 and 1774. In these volumes, he stated that God’s will and plan for the universe governed how human liberty would be used. Priestley’s writings became quite millenarian under his monistic perspective on divine causality. In A Free Discussion of Materialism and Philosophical Necessity (1778), he asserted his deterministic philosophy against his reformer colleague, Scottish minister and philosopher Richard Price.

Because of his support for the French Revolution (1789– 1799), which he saw as a precursor to the millennium and the second coming of Christ, Priestley’s house, laboratory, and church were destroyed. In 1794 Priestley and his wife left for the United States, where they were welcomed in Philadelphia by President George Washington. Priestley remained active in his intellectual and scientific endeavors, becoming a member of American statesperson Benjamin Franklin’s American Philosophical Society. He kept himself out of politics in America as he had in England, and continued his work as a minister, scientist, and writer. Priestly established the first Unitarian church in America.

Bibliography:

Canovan, Margaret. “Two Concepts of Liberty: Eighteenth Century Style.” The Price-Priestley Newsletter 2 (1978): 27–43.
Garrett, Clarke. “Joseph Priestley, the Millennium, and the French Revolution.” Journal of the History of Ideas 34, no. 1 (1973): 51–66.
Graham, Jenny. “Revolutionary Philosopher: The Political Ideas of Joseph Priestley (1733–1804).” Enlightenment and Dissent 8 (1989): 43–68.
Priestley, Joseph. Political Writings. Edited by Peter N. Miller. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Thomas, D. O. “Progress, Liberty and Utility: The Political Philosophy of Joseph Priestley.” In Science, Medicine and Dissent: Joseph Priestley (1733–1804), edited by R. G.W. Anderson and Christopher Lawrence, 73–79. London: Wellcome Trust / Science Museum, 1987.

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