As to the experiments, I find I cannot do much till I get my own house built. At present I have all my books and instruments in one room, in the house of my son.
This is the first time in all his correspondence that reference is made to experimental work. It was in 1795. As a matter of course every American chemist is interested to know when he began experimentation in this country.
In the absence of proper laboratory space and the requisite apparatus, it is not surprising that he thought much and wrote extensively on religious topics, and further he would throw himself into
political problems, for he addressed Mr. Adams on restriction "in the naturalization of foreigners." He remarked that—
Party strife is pretty high in this country, but the Constitution is such that it cannot do any harm.
To friends, probably reminding him of being "unactive, which affects me much," he answered:
As to the chemical lectureship (in Philadelphia) I am convinced I could not have acquitted myself in it to proper advantage. I had no difficulty in giving a general course of chemistry at Hackney (England), lecturing only once a week; but to give a lecture every day for four months, and to enter so particularly into the subject as a course of lectures in a medical University (Pennsylvania) requires, I was not prepared for; and my engagements there would not, at my time of life, have permitted me to make the necessary preparations for it; if I could have done it at all. For, though I have made discoveries in some branches of chemistry, I never gave much attention to the common routine of
it, and know but little of the common processes.
Is not this a refreshing confession from the celebrated discoverer of oxygen? The casual reader would not credit such a statement from one who August 1, 1774, introduced to the civilized world so important an element as oxygen. Because he did not know the "common processes" of chemistry and had not concerned himself with the "common routine" of it, led to his blazing the way among chemical compounds in his own fashion. Many times since the days of Priestley real researchers after truth have proceeded without compass and uncovered most astonishing and remarkable results. They had the genuine research spirit and were driven forward by it. Priestley knew little of the labyrinth of analysis and cared less; indeed, he possessed little beyond an insatiable desire to unfold Nature's secrets.
Admiration for Priestley increases on hearing him descant on the people about him—on the natives—