(When this work first appeared in 1767, electricity was se...)
When this work first appeared in 1767, electricity was seen as such a minor aspect of natural philosophy that its investigation was not considered a priority for contemporary scientists. The polymath Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) was one of the few who devoted serious effort to advancing the field. Here he charts the history of electrical study from experiments with amber in ancient Greece to the most recent discoveries. The book comprises explanations of the principal theories of electricity - both historical and contemporary - in addition to a selection of well-known experiments carried out by previous researchers. Priestley also details his own experiments, covering such topics as the colour of electric light, the effects of temperature, and even the musical tone of electrical discharges. One of his most successful works, testifying to the clarity of his explanations, the book remains an important text in the history of science.
Joseph Priestley was an English scientist, philosopher, theologian, and clergyman who authored more than 150 publications. Priestley is noted for his groundbreaking contributions to experimental chemistry, electricity, and the chemistry of gases, as well as his extraordinary work regarding liberal political and religious thought.
Background
Joseph Priestley was born on March 13, 1733, at Birstall Fieldhead, a small village just southwest of Leeds where his family had lived and worked for several generations. His father, Jonas Priestley, was a wool-cloth dresser and his mother, Mary Swift, came from a farming family. Priestley was their first-born child, but three brothers and two sisters soon followed in quick succession. The demands of a large family meant that the young Priestley was sent first to live his grandfather and later, after the death of his mother, to the home of his childless uncle and aunt.
Education
Joseph was ill as a child and his early education was neglected. At the age of 12, he attended Batley Grammar School.
By his mid-teen years, Priestley had discovered his natural aptitude for languages and learned Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. His preparation would have been ideal for study at Oxford or Cambridge, but as a Dissenter - someone who was not a member of the Church of England - Priestley was barred from England's great universities. So he enrolled at Dissenting Academy at Daventry, Northamptonshire, in 1752, and was exempted from a year of classes because of his achievements.
While studying at the Dissenting Academy, Priestley renounced the Calvinist doctrines of original sin and atonement and embraced a rational Unitarianism that rejected the Trinity and asserted the perfectibility of man.
In 1765, Priestley received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Edinburgh.
Between 1755 and 1761, Priestley ministered at Needham Market, Suffolk, and at Nantwich, Cheshire. In 1761, he became a tutor in languages and literature at the Warrington Academy, Lancashire. He was ordained a Dissenting minister in 1762. He taught modern languages along with rhetoric, though according to him, he preferred to teach mathematics and natural philosophy more.
In 1761, Joseph Priestley wrote "The Rudiments of English Grammar." He believed that before children proceeded to learn any other language, having a good grasp of English grammar was very important. The book became very successful and popular and for more than fifty years, it continued to be reprinted.
In 1765, he wrote "Essay on a Course of Liberal Education for Civil and Active Life." According to the arguments he presented in the essay, education should anticipate the practical needs of young people, but the universities were not doing so, and instead focused on traditional classical education.
According to him, the universities didn't allow the students to learn skills that would be of use in their lives. Instead of classical languages, he wanted the universities to teach English and modern languages, along with practical mathematics, as well as teach about the laws of England, instead of focusing too much on ancient history.
After meeting Benjamin Franklin in 1765, Priestley's interest in science increased to a great extent. Having been inspired by Franklin, he published the 700 pages "The History and Present State of Electricity, with Original Experiments" two years later. In this work, he used history to show how progress in the field of science depended not on the insights of a few intelligent men but was more dependent on the accumulation of new facts that could be discovered by anyone.
Since this book was not for the general public, he wrote another one "A Familiar Introduction to the Study of Electricity" though the book failed to sell well.
Later Joseph Priestley moved with his family to Leeds, where he became the minister of the Mill Hill Chapel. However, because of his views, he was considered a heretic by some. But according to Priestley, he wanted to return Christianity to its pure form, by getting rid of the corruption which had been accumulating for a long time. He even published a book on the topic "A History of the Corruptions of Christianity." According to him, it was the most significant of all his works.
In 1767, "The History and Present State of Electricity" was published by Priestley. It focused on his early experiments and discoveries which were heavily inspired by the famous Benjamin Franklin. Not only this work became the standard history of electricity for over a hundred years, but it had also helped inspire famous scientists such as Alessandro Volta and William Herschel.
Priestley published six volumes of "Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air" between 1772 and 1790. In this work, he wrote about the experiments he made using different kinds of air. It was these experiments that established his reputation as a chemist.
In 1774, with the help of his friend Theophilus Lindsey, Joseph Priestley held the first-ever Unitarian service in Britain. In his defense, he said that he had altered only the way of worship, and not the substance.
He had written to many people about a new "air" he had discovered. He called this new substance "dephlogisticated air." He had made this air by focusing the rays of the sun on one sample of mercuric oxide. After experimenting on mice and later, on himself, he found that this particular kind of air was five to six times better than normal air, for purposes like respiration and inflammation. Thus, oxygen gas was discovered.
Having already made several controversial publications, when Priestley spoke in support of the French Revolution, there was a huge negative reaction against him both from the public and the government, which led to a mob burning down his house and church. He fled to Northumberland, in Pennsylvania, in the United States. He preached only occasionally in the following years but published much and continued to write until the day of his death, on February 6, 1804. That evening, although very ill, Priestley finished dictating some changes to some pamphlets. When these were complete he said "That is right; I have done now" and died just hours later.
Joseph Priestley is highly regarded for his work with the chemistry of gases. As a friend of Benjamin Franklin, Priestley contacted him regarding his theories of electricity. He later experimented with distinguishing various types of "air."
Before him, scientists thought that the air on Earth consisted of carbon dioxide and hydrogen. Priestley brought 10 more gases to this list, such as nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide, nitrous oxide, hydrogen chloride, ammonia, sulfur dioxide, silicon tetrafluoride, nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon monoxide. He also invented soda water.
Priestley is known for his theological, philosophical, and political essays including "An Essay on the First Principles of Government, and on the Nature of Political, Civil, and Religious Liberty" (1769) and "History of the Corruptions of Christianity" (1782).
Several statues of Priestley have been built all over Britain in order to memorize him.
The Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, United States, started presenting the Priestley Award from 1952 to any scientist who makes discoveries that would contribute to the welfare of humanity.
Priestley recalls religious devotion on the part of his parents, his uncle, and his aunt. However, while Priestley shared his family's religiosity and remained a committed believer all his life, he was profoundly affected by early theological doubts. He was "much distressed" because he could not "feel a proper repentance for the sin of Adam" and was equally disturbed by his failure to experience the "new birth" regarded as "necessary to salvation." Having a weak constitution and facing death during adolescence, Priestley was faced with the "horror" of feeling that God had forsaken him.
It is fortunate that Priestley had the intellectual and spiritual resources to deal with these fears. Although a strict Calvinist, his aunt often entertained liberal Armenian and Baxterian theologians, so the young Priestley was able to explore the rational theology that would quell the horrors that haunted him. He was eventually able to view his doubts as part of his progression towards truth. He writes that his illness, rigorous religious upbringing and failure to experience a conversion allowed him to acquire a "serious turn of mind," and his doubts were compensated by a rational understanding of God and proper action. However, as his theology drifted from that of his family and community, Priestley faced rejection and isolation. Priestley had grown up attending the Heckmondwike congregation and tells us that he desired to be admitted as a communicant. However, his membership was refused 'because, when they interrogated me on the subject of the sin of Adam, I appeared not to be quite orthodox." When Priestley adopted Arianism at Daventry it marked a break with the family that would not be reversed.
Application of his theological methods allowed Priestley to develop a set of religious beliefs which he regarded as highly rational and as close as possible to the pure Christianity of the early church. Already denying the Trinity, Priestley left Daventry Academy an Arian and after reading Nathaniel Lardner's Letter on the Logos of 1759 he adopted the Unitarian creed which he held for most of his adult life.
Priestley argued that the notion of the Trinity is an essentially irrational tenet of unquestioning faith. It requires a willingness to replace individual reason with trust in the teaching of church authorities whose power is perpetuated by ideas shrouded in superstition and mystery. He compared this belief to the simple idea of a unified God, a rational truth present in both natural and revealed religion. His historical work allowed Priestley to argue that the early Christians and Church Fathers were Unitarian and that belief in the Trinity was a corruption that had crept into scripture over the centuries. The Trinity slowly developed over time as gentile and heathen beliefs infiltrated simple "pristine" understanding of the unlearned. The most important message of the Old Testament, argues Priestley, is that God is unified and indivisible. In the New Testament, while the role of Jesus is essential, the Father is entirely exclusive of the Son. Christ has the power for resurrection and ascension, but he is not God, according to Priestley. He is not divine and should not be worshipped, despite being an object of our utmost respect.
Politics
Joseph Priestley advocated political, religious, and intellectual freedom and the pursuit of truth through unfettered debate, yet he could be stubborn and uncompromising and believed in absolute truth. This led him into heated controversy and acrimonious debate despite his insistence that he simply wanted a frank exchange of opinions. Priestley was portrayed by his enemies as a dangerous radical with a political and religious philosophy that would undermine the moral and social order. In print and in cartoon Priestley was "gunpowder Joe," an explosive enemy of church authority, the truth of revealed religion and the political status quo.
Priestley endorsed both the American and French revolutions, authoring pamphlets in support of each.
Views
Priestley systematically analyzed the properties of different "airs" using the favored apparatus of the day: an inverted container on a raised platform that could capture the gases produced by various experiments below it. The container could also be placed in a pool of water or mercury, effectively sealing it, and a gas tested to see if it would sustain a flame or support life.
In the course of these experiments, Priestley made an enormously important observation. A flame went out when placed in a jar in which a mouse would die due to lack of air. Putting a green plant in the jar and exposing it to sunlight would "refresh" the air, permitting a flame to burn and a mouse to breathe. Perhaps, Priestley wrote, "the injury which is continually done by such a large number of animals is, in part at least, repaired by the vegetable creation." Thus he observed that plants release oxygen into the air - the process is known as photosynthesis.
On August 1, 1774, Priestley conducted his most famous experiment. Using a 12-inch-wide glass "burning lens," he focused sunlight on a lump of reddish mercuric oxide in an inverted glass container placed in a pool of mercury. The gas emitted, he found, was "five or six times as good as common air." In succeeding tests, it caused a flame to burn intensely and kept a mouse alive about four times as long as a similar quantity of air.
Priestley called his discovery "dephlogisticated air" on the theory that it supported combustion so well because it had no phlogiston in it, and hence could absorb the maximum amount during burning.
Whatever the gas was called, its effects were remarkable. "The feeling of it in my lungs," Priestley wrote, "was not sensibly different from that of common air, but I fancied that my breast felt peculiarly light and easy for some time afterwards. Who can tell but that in time, this pure air may become a fashionable article in luxury. Hitherto only two mice and myself have had the privilege of breathing it."
Between 1772 and 1790, he published six volumes of Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air and more than a dozen articles in the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions describing his experiments on gases, or "airs," as they were then called. He had previously identified three types of gases: air, carbon dioxide (fixed air), and hydrogen (inflammable air). Priestley incorporated an explanation of the chemistry of these gases into the phlogiston theory, according to which combustible substances released phlogiston - an immaterial "principle of inflammability" - during burning.
Priestley discovered 10 new gases: nitric oxide (nitrous air), nitrogen dioxide (red nitrous vapour), nitrous oxide (inflammable nitrous air, later called "laughing gas"), hydrogen chloride (marine acid air), ammonia (alkaline air), sulfur dioxide (vitriolic acid air), silicon tetrafluoride (fluor acid air), nitrogen (phlogisticated air), oxygen (dephlogisticated air, independently co-discovered by Carl Wilhelm Scheele), and a gas later identified as carbon monoxide. Priestley's experimental success resulted predominantly from his ability to design ingenious apparatuses and his skill in their manipulation. He gained particular renown for an improved pneumatic trough in which, by collecting gases over mercury instead of in water, he was able to isolate and examine gases that were soluble in water.
Priestley viewed his scientific pursuits as consistent with the commercial and entrepreneurial interests of English Dissenters. He embraced the 17th-century statesman and natural philosopher Francis Bacon’s argument that social progress required the development of science-based commerce. This view was reinforced when he moved to become a preacher at the New Meeting House in Birmingham in 1780 and became a member of the Lunar Society, an elite group of local gentlemen, Dissenters, and industrialists, who applied the principles of science and technology toward the solving of problems experienced in 18th-century urban life. When confronted by the multitude of diseases that plagued the growing populations in towns and military installations, Priestley designed an apparatus that produced carbonated water, a mixture that he thought would provide medicinal benefit to sufferers of scurvy and various fevers. Although it ultimately proved ineffective in treating these disorders, the "gasogene" that employed this technique later made possible the soda-water industry. Priestley also designed the "eudiometer," which was used in the general movement for sanitary reform and urban design to measure the "purity" (oxygen content) of atmospheric air.
Quotations:
"Could we have entered into the mind of Sir Isaac Newton, and have traced all the steps by which he produced his great works, we might see nothing very extraordinary in the process."
"Every man, when he comes to be sensible of his natural rights, and to feel his own importance, will consider himself as fully equal to any other person whatever."
"Will is nothing more than a particular case of the general doctrine of association of ideas, and therefore a perfectly mechanical thing."
Membership
The Royal Society
1766
Lunar Society
1780
Personality
Despite his incendiary views, Priestley was described as a courteous gentleman of an attractive and winning personality.
Interests
reading
Connections
Joseph Priestley got married on June 23, 1762, to Mary Wilkinson. According to him, Mary was quite affectionate, generous, and supportive, which allowed Priestley to peacefully focus on his work.
The couple had one daughter and three sons: Sarah, Joseph, William, and Henry.
The Royal Society recognized Priestley's achievements in natural philosophy by awarding him the Copley Medal for the discovery of "soda water," in 1773.
The Royal Society recognized Priestley's achievements in natural philosophy by awarding him the Copley Medal for the discovery of "soda water," in 1773.
