RELATING TO

MATTER AND SPIRIT.

TO WHICH IS ADDED

The History of the Philofophical Doctrine concern-
ing the Origin of the Soul, and the Nature of
Matter; with its Influence on Christianity, efpe-
cially with respect to the Doctrine of the Pre-
existence of Christ.

BY JOSEPH PRIESTLEY, LL.D. F.R.S.

V O L. I.

THE SECOND EDITION, IMPROVED AND ENLARGED,

Si quelqu'un demontreroit jamais, qu l'âme eft materielle, loin de s'en alarmer,
il faudroit admirer la puiffance, qui auroit donné a la matiere la capacité
de penfer.
BONNETT. Palingenefie. Vol. I. p. 50.

BIRMINGHAM,

PRINTED BY PEARSON AND ROLLASON, FOR J. JOHNSON,
NO. 72, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD, LONDON.

MDCCLXXXII.

ТО ТНЕ

Rev. WILLIAM GRAHAM.

I

DEAR SIR,

TAKE the liberty to dedicate to you:

a work, written with greater freedom than any that I have hitherto offered to the Public. An enemy of bigotry, and a dis-tinguished champion for freedom of think-` ing, in very trying fituations, as you have long been, I am fatisfied you will not be displeased with any effort of the spirit with which you have ever been animated, and which you have done fo much to infpire.

Educated, as you know I was, in the very straitest principles of reputed orthodoxy, and zealous as I once was for every tenet of the system, it was, in a great measure, by your example and encouragement, at my entrance on theological inquiries, that I' adventured to think for myfelf on fubjects' VOL. I.

a

of

of the greatest importance; and that I have been able, in the courfe of a flow and laborious investigation, to free myself from many vulgar prejudices, and to reject many grofs corruptions, as I now deem them, of that religion which is the best gift of God to man, and to attain to the degree of conviction and fatisfaction of mind which I now enjoy. Every obligation of this important kind I hope I fhall always remember with peculiar pleasure and gratitude.

After a fufficiently tempeftuous life, you are now enjoying yourself in a tranquil retirement, and seeing others contend with the ftorm, the fury of which you have borne, and which you have, in fome meafure, broken, and rendered lefs hazardous to those who come after you. My time of withdrawing from this bufy fcene is not yet come; but while I feel myself animated with your love of truth, I fhall enjoy an enviable compofure even in the midst of the tempeft; and I fhall endeavour to re