In December 1780, Mr. Hawkes declining the pastoral care, the congregation judiciously turned their thoughts towards the celebrated Doctor priestley, F.R.S. one of the first philosophers of the age; whose merit seems obvious to every eye but his own.
"An History of Birmingham (1783)"
William Hutton
A complete survey of the intellectual history of the time would of course have to deal with the great men who were laying the foundations of the modern physical sciences; such as Black, and priestley, and Cavendish, and Hunter.
"English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century"
Leslie Stephen
He had been an ardent revolutionist in the days when he adopted the metaphysics of Hartley and priestley, which fell in with the main eighteenth-century current of scepticism.
"English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century"
Leslie Stephen