I should like to express my thanks to colleagues at the University of Kent for comments on different aspects of this paper, especially to Grayson Ditchfield, who generously allowed me to benefit from his expertise in the eighteenth-century English political scene and the role of the Dissenters; also to Alec Dolby and Crosbie Smith,with whom I discussed the conclusions. In the University of Kent library I have been able to draw on the valuable resources of the Maddison Collection, which includes strong Priestley holdings.

¹ A recent bibliography, listing more than 1600 secondary works on Burke, gets no nearer to the subject of the present paper than a handful of works which relate him to the Enlightenment. See Gandy, Clara I. and Stanlis, Peter J., Edmund Burke. A bibliography of Secondary Studies to 1982, New York and London, 1983.Google ScholarStanlis, P., Edmund Burke and the Natural Law, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1958Google Scholar, is a valuable book on its subject but the author specifically excludes physical science from his discussion (p. 5). He declines to consider die relation of his subject to science, of which he is wholly critical (p. 23). Many authors, if they mention Burke's discussion of science, imply that this was no more than the use of a metaphor, e.g. Deane, Seamus F., ‘Burke and the French philosophes’, Studies in Burke and His Time, (1968/1969), 10, pp. 1113–1137 (p. 1117).Google ScholarChapman, Gerald W., Edmund Burke, the Practical Imagination, Cambridge, Mass., 1967, p. 278CrossRefGoogle Scholar devotes three lines to Burke's use of scientific terms. A book with considerable authority is Boulton, J. J., The Language of Politics in the Age of Wilkes and Burke, London, 1963Google Scholar, especially chapter 7, although again the emphasis is on metaphor. Freeman, Michael's useful book, Edmund Burke and the Critique of Political Radicalism (Oxford, 1980, p. 33)Google Scholar has a comment to make on Burke's view of the less than human characteristics of ‘scientised’ men, of whom Priestley would be an obvious example.

² Blackwood's Magazine, 12 1828Google Scholar, extracted by Hughes, A. M. D. (ed.), Edmund Burke. Selections, Oxford, 1930, p. 22.Google Scholar

³ Alexander Pope's famous injunction: ‘presume not God to scan’ (Essay on man, Epistle II, line 1) is supplemented by, for example, ‘Trace Science then, with Modesty thy guide’ (Ibid., line 43). See also Nicolson, Marjorie and Rousseau, G. S., ‘This Long Disease, My Life’. Alexander Pope and the Sciences, Princeton, 1968.Google Scholar

⁴ See, for example, William Blake's association of Newton with materialism, and the philosophes with the Industrial Revolution in Keynes, Geoffrey (ed.), Poetry and Prose of William Blake, London, 1939, p. 107Google Scholar (miscellaneous poems) and p. 449 (Jerusalem, 1).

⁵ Clarke, J. C. D., English Society, 1688–1832, Cambridge, 1985.Google Scholar

⁶ MacCunn, J., The Political Philosophy of Burke, London, 1913Google Scholar; reissued New York, 1965.

⁷ The threat of the new knowledge to Burke's world is explored in a second article by the present author. The metaphor of intellectual space has most recently been applied to a seventeenth-century context by Shapin, Stephen and Schaffer, Simon, Leviathan and the Air Pump. Hobbes, Boyle and the Experimental Life, Princeton, N.J, 1985, pp. 332ff.Google Scholar

⁸ Burke, Edmund, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)Google Scholar, edited and with an introduction by Conor Cruise O'Brien, Harmondsworth, Middx., 1981, p. 170. All quotations from the Reflections will be referred to this Penguin edition, being the one most widely available. It is to be regretted that, although there is an excellent scholarly edition of Burke's Correspondence, there is not yet a standard scholarly edition of his works. The plethora of editions of his works, although indicative of his great influence, serves merely to increase the difficulties of the modern commentator.

⁹ Goodwin, Albert, The Friends of Liberty. The English Democratic Movement in the Age of the French Revolution, London, 1979, p. 99.Google Scholar

¹⁰ The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, (ed. Copeland, T. W. et al. ), 10 vols, Cambridge, 1958–1978, vi (ed. Cobban, Alfred and Smith, Robert A.) p. xx.Google Scholar Subsequently this will be referred to simply as Correspondence. See also Smith, Robert A., ‘Burke's crusade against the French Revolution: principles and prejudices’, Burke Newsletter, (1966), 7, pp. 552–569.Google Scholar

¹¹ Roberts, J. M., The Mythology of Secret Societies, St Albans, 1974, pp. 162–163.Google Scholar

¹² Reflections, e.g. p. 297.Google Scholar Mary Wollstonecraft, however, pointed out that Burke's ‘humanity’ excluded the vast majority of ordinary people.

¹³ There are useful comments on Burke's Reflections in Fasel, George, Edmund Burke, Boston, Mass., 1983Google Scholar and, most recently, in Butler, Marilyn, Burke, Paine, Godwin and the Revolution Controversy, Cambridge, 1984.Google Scholar On Burke's reaction to the French Revolution see Brown, Philip Anthony, The French Revolution in English History, London, 1965Google Scholar, chapter IV. Courtney, C. P., Montesquieu and Burke, Oxford, 1963Google Scholar, (especially chapter VIII), is more relevant than the title of the book might suggest. Kramnick, Isaac, The Rage of Edmund Burke, New York, 1977Google Scholar, has relevant material, whether or not one agrees with the author's psychoanalytic thesis. O'Gorman, Frank, Edmund Burke, his Political Philosophy, London, 1973Google Scholar, in emphasizing Burke the parliamentarian, seems to deny the possibility of a philosophical basis for Burke's political thought. Cameron, David (The Social Thought of Rousseau and Burke. A Comparative Study, London, 1973, pp. 80–81)Google Scholar, while reminding us that Burke was not a philosopher, is more positive. The most recent writer to argue that Burke was not a philosopher is Lock, F. P., (Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, London, 1985)Google Scholar, since he wished to focus on Burke's use of rhetoric to persuade his contemporaries. Frequent use of metaphor does not, however, preclude the possibility of a system of ideas behind the words.

¹⁴ Letter from Burke, to Fitzwilliam, Lord, 21 11 1791Google Scholar, Correspondence, op. cit. (10), vi, p. 450.Google Scholar

¹⁵ O'Gorman, Frank, op. cit. (13), p. 14.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Reflections, op. cit. (8), p. 175.Google Scholar

¹⁷ It is worth noting that when Paine claimed that every man had ‘natural rights’, he explained such rights as being in the first place ‘intellectual rights or rights of the mind’, Paine, Thomas, The Rights of Man, Part I (1791), Everyman edn., London, 1966, p. 44.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Correspondence, op. cit. (10), vii, p. xiGoogle Scholar (my italics).

¹⁹ Thoughts on French Affairs (1791)Google Scholar, Reflections, Everyman edn., London, 1967, p. 288.Google Scholar

²⁰ Reflections, p. 237.Google Scholar

²¹ Ibid., p. 161. There is an obvious parallel with the situation arising from the civil war in seventeenth-century England. See, e.g., Hill, Christopher, The World Turned Upside Down; Radical Ideas during the English Revolution, London, 1972.Google Scholar

²² Ibid., p. 359.

²³ Letters on a Regicide Peace (1795–1797)Google Scholar, Works, Bonn's Standard Library, London, 1903, iii, 215.

²⁴ In a Trinitarian age religious radicalism was strongly associated with anti-Trinitarianism.

²⁵ Priestley writes: ‘ycm seemed to give some attention to the object of my experiments’, 11 12 1782.Google ScholarSchofield, R. E. (ed.), A Scientific Autobiography of Joseph Priestley, 1733–1804, Cambridge, Mass., 1963, p. 216.Google Scholar For Burke's awareness of Priestley's scientific work as early as 1772 see footnote 213.

²⁶ A situation often explained by ‘the shadow of the great Isaac Newton’.

²⁷ Experiments and Observations on Air, Birmingham, 1790, vol. iGoogle Scholar, preface. Rutt, J. T. (ed.), The Theological and Miscellaneous Works of Joseph Priestley, 26 vols, London, 1817–1832, xxv, p. 375Google Scholar, referred to hereafter as Priestley, Works.

²⁸ Ibid.

²⁹ Coleridge, ‘Essay on the grounds of government’ (first published in The Friend, 1809).Google ScholarThe Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (ed. Coburn, Kathleen) vol. iv (The Friend, vol. i, ed. Rooke, Barbara E.), London and Princeton, 1969, p. 188.Google Scholar

³⁰ While writing the Reflections, Burke told a correspondent that he hoped in the book to expose the Dissenters ‘to the hatred, ridicule and contempt of the whole world’, Burke, to Francis, Philip, 20 02 1790Google Scholar, Correspondence, op. cit. (10), vi, p. 92.Google Scholar

³¹ In a letter to Fox of 9 September 1789, Burke had described Priestley as ‘a very considerable Leader among a Set of Men powerful enough in many things, but most of all in Elections’, Correspondence, op. cit. (10), vi, 15.Google Scholar At this point Burke was actually urging Fox to cultivate the Dissenters for the benefit of the Whigs! This illustrates the powerful influence of the ‘October days’ on Burke's thinking.

³² Reflections, p. 148.Google Scholar

³³ Letter to the Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke, Birmingham, 1791.Google Scholar See also Fennessy, R. R., Burke, Paine and the Rights of Man, London, 1963, p. 209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁴ Although a great time lag often exists between distinctions made by men of science and their understanding by the general public, we may recall that as late as 1782 James Price, F.R.S., (not to be confused with the Dissenting minister) had claimed to have transmuted mercury into gold. The University of Oxford presented Price with an honorary degree, but his dishonesty was soon exposed and he committed suicide. See James Price (né Higginbotham), An Account of Some Experiments on Mercury, Silver and Gold, made at Guildford in 1782, Oxford, 1782Google Scholar, and Cameron, Hector C., Sir Joseph Banks, London, 1952, pp. 151–157.Google Scholar

³⁵ Reflections, p. 282.Google Scholar

³⁶ Ibid., p. 300.

³⁷ Ibid., p. 359.

³⁸ Ibid., p. 308.

³⁹ Ibid., p. 226.

⁴⁰ ‘This is their alchymy’, Ibid. p. 369.

⁴¹ See Smeaton, W. A., Fourcroy, Chemist and Revolutionary, 1755–1809, Cambridge, 1962, pp. 120–121.Google Scholar

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⁴⁵ Ibid., p. 148.

⁴⁶ Debate on Repeal of Test and Corporation Acts, 2 March 1790, Speech by MrSmith, W., Cobbett's Parliamentary History of England, vol. xxviii, cols. 443–444.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Street, Thomas George, A Reply to a Letter from the Rt. Hon Edmund Burke to a Noble Lord. Being a Vindication of the Duke of Bedford's Attack upon Mr Burke's Pension, London, 1796, p. 61.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Priestley, , Works, op. cit. (27), xviii, 544.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Ibid., p. 545.

⁵⁰ See Ditchfield, G. M., ‘The parliamentary struggle over the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts’, English Historical Review, (1974), 89, pp. 551–577.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵¹ Parliamentary History, 28 03 1787, 22Google Scholar, col. 831. See also Priestley, , Works, op. cit. (27), xviii, p. 544n.Google Scholar

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⁵⁴ Nott, John (pseudonym), Very Familiar Letters Addressed to Dr Priestley, Birmingham, [1790], p. 13.Google Scholar Burke is referred to humorously (p. 21) as using ‘plaguy (sic) hard words’.

⁵⁵ Reflections, p. 268.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ For a general account of saltpetre production in France, see Multhauf, Robert P., ‘The French crash program for saltpetre production, 1776–94’, Technology and Culture,(1971), 12, pp. 163–181CrossRefGoogle Scholar (p. 174).

⁵⁷ Mort aux Tyrans. Programme des Cours Révolutionnaires sur la Fabrication des Salpêtres, des Poudres et des Canons, Paris, An 2 [1793–1794].Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Le Salpêtre Républicain.

⁵⁹ Letter to a Noble Lord (1795)Google Scholar, Works, v, p. 143.Google Scholar Burke was incensed by the criticism of his recent government pension by the Duke of Bedford, who failed to appreciate the dangers of the Revolution.

⁶⁰ Burke had used the same metaphor in 1791, speaking of the ‘untempered mortar’ holding together the revolutionary building (Speeches, London, 1816, vol. iv, p. 26).Google Scholar

⁶¹ Letter to a Noble Lord (1795)Google Scholar, Works, v, p. 143.Google Scholar

⁶² In a parliamentary debate Burke had scathingly described the French revolutionaries as ‘the architects of ruin’; they had ‘completely pulled down to the ground their monarchy, their church, their nobility, their law, their revenue, their army, their navy, their commerce, their arts and their manufactures’, Parliamentary History, 9 02 1790, 28Google Scholar, col. 354.

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⁶⁶ Ibid., p. 93.

⁶⁷ Given the especial political disabilities of the Unitarians, it is hardly surprising that Priestley should have become an advocate of political change. The majority of Dissenters, however, were not Unitarians and many had little interest in politics.

⁶⁸ Reflections, pp. 370, 371.Google ScholarThoughts on French Affairs in Everyman edition of Reflections, London, 1967, p. 293.Google Scholar Interestingly, it was Bailly who introduced the modern concept of a scientific revolution (e.g. ‘the Copernican revolution’) in 1785Google Scholar, Cohen, I. Bernard, Revolutions in Science, Cambridge, Mass., 1985, pp. 221–223.Google Scholar

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⁷¹ Especially after the Jesuits had been expelled from France. Roberts, John M., The Mythology of Secret Societies, London, 1972, pp. 183, 211Google Scholar and chapter VI. See also White, R. J., The Anti-philosophers, London, 1970, pp. 115–117.Google Scholar

⁷² Le Patriote Véridique, ou Discours sur les Vraies Causes de la Revolution Actuelle, Paris, 1789, e.g., pp. 11, 22.Google ScholarMémoires pour Servir à l'Histoire du Jacobinisme, 4 vols., Hamburg, 1798.Google Scholar A late Scottish perspective of the conspiracy thesis is provided by Robison, John, Proof of a conspiracy against all the religions and governments of Europe carried on in the secret meetings of freemasons, illuminati and reading societies, Edinburgh, 1797.Google Scholar See Morrell, J. B., ‘Professors Robison and Playfair, and the Theophobia Gallica: natural philosophy, religion and politics in Edinburgh, 1789–1815’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, (1971), 26, 43–63 (47).CrossRefGoogle Scholar A reasoned argument on the limited power of philosophers had to wait until 1801, Mounier, J. J., On the Influence Attributed to Philosophers, Freemasons and to the Illuminati on the Revolution in France, London, 1801.Google Scholar Mounier points out (p. 113) that some philosophers like Condorcet had no influence at the beginning of the revolution and themselves became victims of it.

⁷³ Regicide Peace, II, Works, v, p. 246.Google Scholar For a later statement of the harmful effects of philosophy on politics, brought to my attention by David Knight, see the 1817 letter of Coleridge to Liverpool, Lord: Letters of S.T. Coleridge, (ed. Griggs, E. L.), Oxford, 1959, vol. 4, pp. 757–763.Google Scholar

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⁷⁵ Ibid., p. 347.

⁷⁶ Ibid., p. 141.

⁷⁷ Ibid., p. 273.

⁷⁸ Ibid., p. 359.

⁷⁹ Ibid., p. 338.

⁸⁰ Ibid., p. 105.

⁸¹ Ibid., p. 90.

⁸² Ibid., p. 345.

⁸³ Payne, E. J. (ed.), Select Works of E. Burke, Oxford, 1898, vol. ii, p. 307Google Scholar, c.f. p. 332.

⁸⁴ Reflections, p. 183.Google Scholar

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⁸⁶ Ibid., p. 128.

⁸⁷ Ibid., p. 148.

⁸⁸ Ibid., p. 207.

⁸⁹ Ibid., pp. 151–215.

⁹⁰ Ibid., p. 239. In 1795 Wilberforce complained in the House of Commons that it was not only French politics but ‘French philosophy’ that was being imported into Britain (Parliamentary History, vol. 32, col. 292). Political cartoonists also associated the French Revolution with ‘philosophers’, e.g., the allegory ‘Philosophy run mad’ (1793) and an unsigned print by Gillray portraying Fox as ‘A democrat—or reason and philosophy’, George, Mary Dorothy, English Political Caricature, 1793–1832, Oxford, 1959, vol. ii, pp. 1, 3.Google Scholar

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⁹⁴ The dagger is obviously a symbol of armed aggression, see Correspondence, vii, p. 328.Google Scholar

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¹⁰¹ Letter to a Noble Lord, Works, v, p. 141.Google Scholar In a letter to Grenville, Lord in 1792Google Scholar Burke does speak of the English Jacobins. He mentions several French revolutionaries including Condorcet ‘and their Brethren, the Priestleys, the Coopers and the Watts’, Correspondence, vii, p. 177.Google ScholarWatt, James (1769–1848)Google Scholar, son of the engineer, had presented an address to the Jacobin club in Paris on 13 April 1792.

¹⁰² Thoughts on French Affairs, loc. cit. (68), p. 293.Google Scholar

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¹⁰⁵ Ibid., p. 212. It should be noted that literature is associated with science. The antithesis between literature and science that is taken for granted in the twentieth century had not yet arisen.

¹⁰⁶ Burke is comparing them to the early church fathers.

¹⁰⁷ Ibid., p. 212.

¹⁰⁸ Ibid., p. 213.

¹⁰⁹ Ibid., p. 212.

¹¹⁰ Tyson, Gerland P., Joseph Johnson: A Liberal Publisher, Iowa City, 1979, p. 121.Google Scholar

¹¹¹ Thoughts on French Affairs, loc. cit. (68), p. 291.Google Scholar

¹¹² Reflections, p. 211.Google Scholar Burke refers to ‘the two academies of France’.

¹¹³ Swift, Jonathan, Gulliver's Travels (1726).Google Scholar See especially Part III, A voyage to Laputa, etc. A referee has suggested that Swift's critical portrayal of science may have had more than a superficial influence on Burke. Burke, however, was much more sympathetic to a science-based technology than Swift (see footnote 215).

¹¹⁴ Reflections, p. 238.Google Scholar

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¹¹⁶ Priestley is portrayed in one contemporary caricature as a wolf in sheep's clothing. George, , op. cit. (90), i, p. 213.Google Scholar

¹¹⁷ Thoughts on French Affairs, loc. cit. (68), p. 315.Google Scholar

¹¹⁸ See Hahn, Roger, The Anatomy of a Scientific Institution. The Paris Academy of Sciences, 1666–1803, Berkeley, 1971.Google Scholar

¹¹⁹ Priestley was proud of the support he received from France. He translated Condorcet's letter and had it published in his Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the Riots of Birmingham, 2nd edn., Birmingham, 1792, pp. 154–156.Google Scholar For the text of another similar letter from ‘the chemists of Paris’ see Schofield, R. E., op. cit. (25), pp. 257–258.Google Scholar They claim to defend ‘the cause of tolerance, of liberty and of philosophy’.

¹²⁰ Speeches, iv, p. 119.Google Scholar

¹²¹ Letter to a Noble Lord, Works, v, p. 142.Google Scholar In modern times mice are still a favourite animal for medical experiments. In 1984 54.4% of such experiments were carried out on mice compared with only 0.6% on cats and dogs (New Scientist, No. 1505, 24 04 1986, p. 27).Google Scholar

¹²² Priestley, , in his paper ‘Observations on different kinds of air’ (Phil. Trans. (1772), 62, pp. 147–267 (p. 214))CrossRefGoogle Scholar, describes how he has substituted a purely chemical test using ‘nitrous air’ for his original test using mice. Henceforth, he no longer had occasion to keep ‘so large a stock of mice’.

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¹²⁵ Letter to a Noble Lord, Works, v, p. 142.Google Scholar

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¹²⁷ ‘It is like that of the principle of evil himself: incorporeal, pure, unmixed, dephlegmated, defecated evil’. Ibid. Notice the choice of adjectives taken from science.

¹²⁸ A modern account is given in Cobban, Alfred, A History of Modern France, 3rd edn., Harmondsworth, Middx., 1963, i, p. 161.Google Scholar Burke nevertheless harboured a deep distrust of Marie Antoinette. Correspondence, vi, p. xvii.Google Scholar

¹²⁹ Rights of Man, Part II (1792), loc. cit. (17), pp. 178–180.Google Scholar See also Weiser, David K., ‘The imagery of Burke's Reflections’, Studies on Burke and His Time, (1974–1975), 16, pp. 312–329Google Scholar (p. 312n).

¹³⁰ Somerset, H. V. F. (ed.), A Notebook on Edmund Burke, Cambridge, 1957, p. 91.Google Scholar

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¹³⁵ Reflections, p. 300.Google Scholar c.f. New Testament parallel in which sheep are separated out from goats, Matthew, xxv, 32.

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¹³⁷ Ibid.

¹³⁸ Bredvold, Louis I. and Ross, Ralph G. (eds), The Philosophy of Edmund Burke: a Selection of his Speeches and Writings, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1960, p. 5.Google Scholar

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¹⁴³ Ibid., p. 276.

¹⁴⁴ Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, Works, iii, p. 82ff.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁵ Reflections, p. 153.Google Scholar For an exegesis of this difficult passage, see Wilkins, Burleigh T., The Problem of Burke's Political Philosophy, Oxford, 1967, p. 178.Google Scholar

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¹⁴⁷ Ibid., p. 286.

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¹⁵⁶ Burke discusses in some detail the system of elections and assemblies which he portrays as abstract and mathematical. Ibid., pp. 287–289.

¹⁵⁷ C.f. letter from Burke, to François de Rivarol, Claude, 1 06 1791:Google Scholar ‘It is better to forget once for all the Encyclopédic and the whole body of Economists …’. (Correspondence, vi, p. 267.)Google Scholar J. J. Mounier pointed out that most economists, far from supporting the revolution, taught respect for property On the Influence Attributed to Philosophers …), London, 1801, pp. 24–25.Google Scholar

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¹⁵⁹ Ibid., p. 299. We may recall that Tom Paine had been an exciseman.

¹⁶⁰ Ibid., p. 174.

¹⁶¹ Ibid., p. 176.

¹⁶² Letter to a Noble Lord, Works, v, p. 114 (my italics).Google Scholar

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¹⁶⁴ Thus the sun at the centre of the universe was compared to the King. William Harvey, court physician to Charles I, used this analogy as well as that between the heart and the monarchy, The Circulation of the Blood, (tr. Franklin, Kenneth J.), London, 1963, pp. 3, 108.Google Scholar

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¹⁸⁰ The best attempt to explain Burke's ideas on natural law is probably Stanlis, P., op. cit. (1).Google Scholar

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¹⁸⁵ Ibid., p. 323.

¹⁸⁶ Ibid., p. 138.

¹⁸⁷ Ibid.

¹⁸⁸ Ibid., p. 120.

¹⁸⁹ Ibid.

¹⁹⁰ Ibid., p. 150.

¹⁹¹ Ibid., p. 152.

¹⁹² Ibid., p. 122.

¹⁹³ Ibid., p. 200.

¹⁹⁴ Ibid., p. 195.

¹⁹⁵ Burke speaks of exile into ‘the antagonistic world of madness, discord, vice, confusion and unavailing sorrow’.

¹⁹⁶ Regicide Peace, IIGoogle Scholar, Works, v, p. 245.Google Scholar

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²⁰³ Ibid., p. 359.

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²¹¹ For an introductory bibliography to the growing literature on classification see Knight, David, Ordering the World, London, 1981, pp. 207–209.Google Scholar

²¹² Elsewhere in the Reflections he uses the metaphor of an ‘ample collection of known classes, genera and species, which at present beautify the hortus siccus [i.e. collection of dried plants]’, ibid., pp. 95–96.

²¹³ Annual Register, 1772, pp. 232–235 (232, my italics).Google Scholar For a view which contrasts the early and acceptable writing of Histories by Priestley with his later experimental career in pneumatic chemistry, see Crosland, Maurice, ‘Priestley Memorial Lecture: A practical perspective on Joseph Priestley as a pneumatic chemist’, B.J.H.S. (1983), 16, pp. 223–238CrossRefGoogle Scholar (231–232).

²¹⁴ Although these powers may have been capable of being discovered for a long time, it was only in the eighteenth century that they began to be developed.

²¹⁵ Reflections, p. 268.Google Scholar

²¹⁶ Ibid., p. 271.

²¹⁷ See, e.g., Jacobs, Margaret, The Newtonians and the English Revolution, 1689–1720, Hassocks, 1976.Google Scholar See also a critique of Jacobs, in Russell, Colin, Science and Social Change, 1700–1900, London, 1983, pp. 52ff.Google Scholar

²¹⁸ Reflections, p. 276.Google Scholar

²¹⁹ Kramnick, Isaac, ‘Eighteenth-century science and radical social theory: the case of Joseph Priestley's scientific liberalism’, Journal of British Studies, (1986), 25, pp. 1–30 (24).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²²⁰ Reflections, p. 195.Google Scholar

²²¹ Ibid., p. 283.

²²² Different specialisms were identified in the regulations of the Paris Academy of Sciences, dating back to 1699 and were well accepted in eighteenth-century France.

²²³ Experiments and Observations on Natural Philosophy, Birmingham, 1779–1786, iii, pp. xvi–xvii.Google Scholar Priestley's claim to be applying scientific method to theology can hardly be accepted at face value. As has been pointed out, he often decided in advance what was ‘true Christianity’ and what were its corruptions. He then turned to history to find support. He did not consult his sources with an open mind. See Cragg, Gerald R., Reason and Authority in the Eighteenth Century, Cambridge, 1964, pp. 236–237.Google Scholar

²²⁴ Reflections, p. 183.Google Scholar

²²⁵ Willey, Basil, The Eighteenth-Century Background, London, 1940, p. 232.Google ScholarBrowne, Ray B., The Burke-Paine Controversy. Text and Criticism, New York, 1963, p. 147.Google Scholar

²²⁶ Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, Works, iii, p. 79.Google Scholar

²²⁷ Montgomery, Robert (ed.), Edmund Burke: Being First Principles Selected from his Writings, London, 1853, p. 4.Google Scholar There is some discussion of Burke's scepticism in Canavan, Francis P., The Political Reason of Edmund Burke, Durham, N. C., 1960, pp. 33–34.Google Scholar

²²⁸ See Todd, William B., A bibliography of Edmund Burke, London, 1964Google Scholar, especially pp. 142ff.

²²⁹ Reflections, p. 268.Google Scholar A seventeenth-century parallel is provided by Henry Stubbes who, in his attack on the Royal Society, speaks of ‘Toyish Experiments’—quoted by Hunter, Michael, Science and Society in Restoration England, Cambridge, 1981, p. 151.Google Scholar It should be noted that no claim is made in this paper for the originality of Burke's ideas. He was all the more influential because in many cases he is doing no more than reminding his audience of their prejudices.