Photometria is a book on the measurement of light by Johann Heinrich Lambert published in 1760. It established a complete system of photometric quantities and principles; using them to measure the optical properties of materials, quantify aspects of vision, and calculate illumination.
117-450: Written in Latin, the title of the book is a word Lambert devised from Ancient Greek : φῶς, φωτος (transliterated phôs, photos) = light, and μετρια (transliterated metria) = measure. Lambert’s word has found its way into European languages as photometry, photometrie, and fotometria. Photometria was the first work to accurately identify most fundamental photometric concepts, assemble them into
234-468: A Rational Dissenter . Abhorring dogma and religious mysticism, Rational Dissenters emphasised rational analysis of the natural world and the Bible. Priestley later wrote that the book that influenced him the most, save the Bible, was David Hartley 's Observations on Man (1749). Hartley's psychological, philosophical, and theological treatise postulated a material theory of mind . Hartley aimed to construct
351-525: A heretic . Each year, Priestley travelled to London to consult with his close friend and publisher, Joseph Johnson , and to attend meetings of the Royal Society. When Priestley became its minister, Mill Hill Chapel was one of the oldest and most respected Dissenting congregations in England; however, during the early 18th century the congregation had fractured along doctrinal lines and was losing members to
468-537: A pitch accent . In Modern Greek, all vowels and consonants are short. Many vowels and diphthongs once pronounced distinctly are pronounced as /i/ ( iotacism ). Some of the stops and glides in diphthongs have become fricatives , and the pitch accent has changed to a stress accent . Many of the changes took place in the Koine Greek period. The writing system of Modern Greek, however, does not reflect all pronunciation changes. The examples below represent Attic Greek in
585-428: A providentialist and naturalist account of history, arguing that the study of history furthered the comprehension of God's natural laws. Furthermore, his millennial perspective was closely tied to his optimism regarding scientific progress and the improvement of humanity. He believed that each age would improve upon the previous and that the study of history allowed people to perceive and to advance this progress. Since
702-424: A "mistake" for both Priestley and the congregation. Priestley yearned for urban life and theological debate, whereas Needham Market was a small, rural town with a congregation wedded to tradition. Attendance and donations dropped sharply when they discovered the extent of his heterodoxy . Although Priestley's aunt had promised her support if he became a minister, she refused any further assistance when she realised he
819-546: A Christian philosophy in which both religious and moral "facts" could be scientifically proven, a goal that would occupy Priestley for his entire life. In his third year at Daventry, Priestley committed himself to the ministry, which he described as "the noblest of all professions". Robert Schofield , Priestley's major modern biographer, describes his first "call" in 1755 to the Dissenting parish in Needham Market , Suffolk, as
936-400: A Reformed English Church (1774), claiming that only the form of worship had been altered, not its substance, and attacking those who followed religion as a fashion. Priestley attended Lindsey's church regularly in the 1770s and occasionally preached there. He continued to support institutionalised Unitarianism for the rest of his life, writing several Defenses of Unitarianism and encouraging
1053-893: A branch of physics, or chemistry, or natural philosophy, or some highly idiosyncratic version of Priestley's own invention". Furthermore, the volumes were both a scientific and a political enterprise for Priestley, in which he argues that science could destroy "undue and usurped authority" and that government has "reason to tremble even at an air pump or an electrical machine". Volume I of Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air outlined several discoveries: "nitrous air" ( nitric oxide , NO); "vapor of spirit of salt", later called "acid air" or "marine acid air" ( anhydrous hydrochloric acid , HCl); "alkaline air" ( ammonia , NH 3 ); "diminished" or "dephlogisticated nitrous air" ( nitrous oxide , N 2 O); and, most famously, "dephlogisticated air" ( oxygen , O 2 ) as well as experimental findings that showed plants revitalised enclosed volumes of air,
1170-592: A century; Alessandro Volta (who later invented the battery), William Herschel (who discovered infrared radiation ), and Henry Cavendish (who discovered hydrogen ) all relied upon it. Priestley wrote a popular version of the History of Electricity for the general public titled A Familiar Introduction to the Study of Electricity (1768). He marketed the book with his brother Timothy, but unsuccessfully. Perhaps prompted by Mary Priestley's ill health, or financial problems, or
1287-527: A change in Priestley's theological thinking that is critical to understanding his later writings—it paved the way for his materialism and necessitarianism (the latter being the belief that a divine being acts in accordance with necessary metaphysical laws). Priestley's major argument in the Institutes was that the only revealed religious truths that could be accepted were those that matched one's experience of
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#17328812598171404-617: A coherent system of photometric quantities, define these quantities with a precision sufficient for mathematical statements, and build from them a system of photometric principles. These concepts, quantities, and principles are still in use today. Lambert began with two simple axioms: light travels in a straight line in a uniform medium and rays that cross do not interact. Like Kepler before him, he recognized that "laws" of photometry are simply consequences and follow directly from these two assumptions. In this way Photometria demonstrated (rather than assumed) that In addition, Lambert postulated
1521-657: A complete system of photometric quantities. Based on the three laws of photometry and the supposition of perfectly diffuse surfaces, Photometria developed and demonstrated the following: Lambert's book is fundamentally experimental. The forty experiments described in Photometria were conducted by Lambert between 1755 and 1760, after he decided to write a treatise on light measurement. His interest in acquiring experimental data spanned several fields: optics, thermometry, pyrometry, hydrometry, and magnetics. This interest in experimental data and its analysis, so evident in Photometria ,
1638-444: A cure for scurvy . He then published a pamphlet with Directions for Impregnating Water with Fixed Air (1772). Priestley did not exploit the commercial potential of carbonated water, but others such as J. J. Schweppe made fortunes from it. For his discovery of carbonated water Priestley has been labelled "the father of the soft drink ", with the beverage company Schweppes regarding him as "the father of our industry". In 1773,
1755-833: A desire to prove himself to the community that had rejected him in his childhood, Priestley moved with his family from Warrington to Leeds in 1767, and he became Mill Hill Chapel 's minister. Two sons were born to the Priestleys in Leeds: Joseph, Junior, on 24 July 1768 and William three years later. Theophilus Lindsey , a rector at Catterick, Yorkshire , became one of Priestley's few friends in Leeds, of whom he wrote: "I never chose to publish any thing of moment relating to theology, without consulting him." Although Priestley had extended family living around Leeds, they do not appear to have communicated. Schofield conjectures that they considered him
1872-567: A discovery that would eventually lead to the discovery of photosynthesis by Jan Ingenhousz . Priestley also developed a "nitrous air test" to determine the "goodness of air". Using a pneumatic trough , he would mix nitrous air with a test sample, over water or mercury, and measure the decrease in volume—the principle of eudiometry . After a small history of the study of airs, he explained his own experiments in an open and sincere style. As an early biographer writes, "whatever he knows or thinks he tells: doubts, perplexities, blunders are set down with
1989-550: A full member. Priestley's illness left him with a permanent stutter and he gave up any thoughts of entering the ministry at that time. In preparation for joining a relative in trade in Lisbon , he studied French, Italian, and German in addition to Aramaic , and Arabic. He was tutored by the Reverend George Haggerstone, who first introduced him to higher mathematics, natural philosophy , logic, and metaphysics through
2106-472: A lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period. They have the same general outline but differ in some of the detail. The only attested dialect from this period is Mycenaean Greek , but its relationship to the historical dialects and
2223-532: A lack of funds, he was forced to cease publishing the journal. However, he did revive it briefly in 1784 with similar results. Many of Priestley's political writings supported the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts , which restricted the rights of Dissenters. They could not hold political office, serve in the armed forces, or attend Oxford and Cambridge unless they subscribed to the Thirty-nine Articles of
2340-419: A lesser degree. Pamphylian Greek , spoken in a small area on the southwestern coast of Anatolia and little preserved in inscriptions, may be either a fifth major dialect group, or it is Mycenaean Greek overlaid by Doric, with a non-Greek native influence. Regarding the speech of the ancient Macedonians diverse theories have been put forward, but the epigraphic activity and the archaeological discoveries in
2457-611: A medallion of Priestley in cream-on-blue jasperware . On 23 June 1762, Priestley married Mary Wilkinson of Wrexham . Of his marriage, Priestley wrote: This proved a very suitable and happy connexion, my wife being a woman of an excellent understanding, much improved by reading, of great fortitude and strength of mind, and of a temper in the highest degree affectionate and generous; feeling strongly for others, and little for herself. Also, greatly excelling in every thing relating to household affairs, she entirely relieved me of all concern of that kind, which allowed me to give all my time to
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#17328812598172574-624: A new Christian denomination that would not restrict its members' beliefs, Priestley and others hurried to his aid. On 17 April 1774, Lindsey held the first Unitarian service in Britain, at the newly formed Essex Street Chapel in London; he had even designed his own liturgy, of which many were critical. Priestley defended his friend in the pamphlet Letter to a Layman, on the Subject of the Rev. Mr. Lindsey's Proposal for
2691-412: A philosophy that incorporates four concepts: determinism , materialism , causation , and necessitarianism . By studying the natural world, he argued, people would learn how to become more compassionate, happy, and prosperous. Priestley strongly suggested that there is no mind-body duality , and put forth a materialist philosophy in these works; that is, one founded on the principle that everything in
2808-543: A prefix /e-/, called the augment . This was probably originally a separate word, meaning something like "then", added because tenses in PIE had primarily aspectual meaning. The augment is added to the indicative of the aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect, but not to any of the other forms of the aorist (no other forms of the imperfect and pluperfect exist). The two kinds of augment in Greek are syllabic and quantitative. The syllabic augment
2925-477: A proper understanding of the natural world would promote human progress and eventually bring about the Christian millennium . Priestley, who strongly believed in the free and open exchange of ideas, advocated toleration and equal rights for religious Dissenters , which also led him to help found Unitarianism in England . The controversial nature of Priestley's publications, combined with his outspoken support of
3042-671: A separate historical stage, though its earliest form closely resembles Attic Greek , and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek , and Koine may be classified as Ancient Greek in a wider sense. There were several regional dialects of Ancient Greek; Attic Greek developed into Koine. Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language , divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic , Aeolic , Arcadocypriot , and Doric , many of them with several subdivisions. Some dialects are found in standardized literary forms in literature , while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms. Homeric Greek
3159-573: A series of major metaphysical texts published between 1774 and 1780— An Examination of Dr. Reid's Inquiry into the Human Mind (1774), Hartley's Theory of the Human Mind on the Principle of the Association of Ideas (1775), Disquisitions relating to Matter and Spirit (1777), The Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity Illustrated (1777), and Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever (1780)—he argues for
3276-609: A standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance . This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language, which are the best-attested periods and considered most typical of Ancient Greek. From the Hellenistic period ( c. 300 BC ), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek , which is regarded as
3393-509: A surface that emits light (either as a source or by reflection) in a way such that the density of emitted light (luminous intensity) varies as the cosine of the angle measured from the surface perpendicular. In the case of a reflecting surface, this form of emission is assumed to be the case, regardless of the light's incident direction. Such surfaces are now referred to as "Perfectly Diffuse" or "Lambertian". See: Lambertian reflectance , Lambertian emitter Lambert demonstrated these principles in
3510-510: A vowel or /n s r/ ; final stops were lost, as in γάλα "milk", compared with γάλακτος "of milk" (genitive). Ancient Greek of the classical period also differed in both the inventory and distribution of original PIE phonemes due to numerous sound changes, notably the following: The pronunciation of Ancient Greek was very different from that of Modern Greek . Ancient Greek had long and short vowels ; many diphthongs ; double and single consonants; voiced, voiceless, and aspirated stops ; and
3627-418: Is a description of contemporary theories about electricity and suggestions for future research. The volume also contains extensive comments on Priestley's views that scientific inquiries be presented with all reasoning in one's discovery path, including false leads and mistakes. He contrasted his narrative approach with Newton's analytical proof-like approach which did not facilitate future researchers to continue
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3744-556: Is a literary form of Archaic Greek (derived primarily from Ionic and Aeolic) used in the epic poems , the Iliad and the Odyssey , and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic and other Classical-era dialects. The origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of
3861-418: Is added to stems beginning with consonants, and simply prefixes e (stems beginning with r , however, add er ). The quantitative augment is added to stems beginning with vowels, and involves lengthening the vowel: Some verbs augment irregularly; the most common variation is e → ei . The irregularity can be explained diachronically by the loss of s between vowels, or that of the letter w , which affected
3978-403: Is also present in other articles and books Lambert produced. For his optics work, extremely limited equipment sufficed: a few panes of glass, convex and concave lenses, mirrors, prisms, paper and cardboard, pigments, candles, and the means to measure distances and angles. Lambert's book is also mathematical. Though he knew that the physical nature of light was unknown (it would be 150 years before
4095-644: Is called 'East Greek'. Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian Greek had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, as exemplified in the poems of the Boeotian poet Pindar who wrote in Doric with a small Aeolic admixture. Thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to
4212-608: Is certainly uncharacteristic of mid-18th century works. Lambert began conducting photometric experiments in 1755 and by August 1757 had enough material to begin writing. From the references in Photometria and the catalogue of his library auctioned after his death, it is clear that Lambert consulted the optical works of Isaac Newton , Pierre Bouguer , Leonhard Euler , Christiaan Huygens , Robert Smith , and Abraham Gotthelf Kästner . He finished Photometria in Augsburg in February 1760 and
4329-448: Is considered by some linguists to have been closely related to Greek . Among Indo-European branches with living descendants, Greek is often argued to have the closest genetic ties with Armenian (see also Graeco-Armenian ) and Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ). Ancient Greek differs from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and other Indo-European languages in certain ways. In phonotactics , ancient Greek words could end only in
4446-505: Is consonant with Christianity, a position based on his understanding of the natural world. Like the rest of nature, man's mind is subject to the laws of causation, Priestley contended, but because a benevolent God created these laws, the world and the people in it will eventually be perfected. Evil is therefore only an imperfect understanding of the world. Although Priestley's philosophical work has been characterised as "audacious and original", it partakes of older philosophical traditions on
4563-489: Is credited with his independent discovery of oxygen by the thermal decomposition of mercuric oxide, having isolated it in 1774. During his lifetime, Priestley's considerable scientific reputation rested on his invention of carbonated water , his writings on electricity , and his discovery of several "airs" (gases), the most famous being what Priestley dubbed "dephlogisticated air" (oxygen). Priestley's determination to defend phlogiston theory and to reject what would become
4680-559: Is known as "visual photometry." Lambert was among the first to accompany experimental measurements with estimates of uncertainties based on a theory of errors and what he experimentally determined as the limits of visual assessment. Although previous workers had pronounced photometric laws 1 and 3, Lambert established the second and added the concept of perfectly diffuse surfaces. But more importantly, as Anding pointed out in his German translation of Photometria , "Lambert had incomparably clearer ideas about photometry" and with them established
4797-476: The Theological Repository in 1768, a journal committed to the open and rational inquiry of theological questions. Although he promised to print any contribution, only like-minded authors submitted articles. He was, therefore, obliged to provide much of the journal's content himself. This material also became the basis for many of his later theological and metaphysical works. After only a few years, due to
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4914-423: The 1st Marquess of Landsdowne – had a rupture, the precise reasons for which remain unclear. Shelburne blamed Priestley's health, while Priestley claimed Shelburne had no further use for him. Some contemporaries speculated that Priestley's outspokenness had hurt Shelburne's political career. Schofield argues that the most likely reason was Shelburne's recent marriage to Louisa Fitzpatrick—apparently, she did not like
5031-669: The American Revolution and later the French Revolution , aroused public and governmental contempt; eventually forcing him to flee in 1791, first to London and then to the United States, after a mob burned down his Birmingham home and church. He spent his last ten years in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania . A scholar and teacher throughout his life, Priestley made significant contributions to pedagogy , including
5148-745: The Greek region of Macedonia during the last decades has brought to light documents, among which the first texts written in Macedonian , such as the Pella curse tablet , as Hatzopoulos and other scholars note. Based on the conclusions drawn by several studies and findings such as Pella curse tablet , Emilio Crespo and other scholars suggest that ancient Macedonian was a Northwest Doric dialect , which shares isoglosses with its neighboring Thessalian dialects spoken in northeastern Thessaly . Some have also suggested an Aeolic Greek classification. The Lesbian dialect
5265-516: The burgeoning chemistry of his day. Instead, he focused on gases and "changes in their sensible properties", as had natural philosophers before him. He isolated carbon monoxide (CO), but apparently did not realise that it was a separate "air". In August 1774 he isolated an "air" that appeared to be completely new, but he did not have an opportunity to pursue the matter because he was about to tour Europe with Shelburne. While in Paris, Priestley replicated
5382-404: The chemical revolution eventually left him isolated within the scientific community. Priestley's science was integral to his theology, and he consistently tried to fuse Enlightenment rationalism with Christian theism . In his metaphysical texts, Priestley attempted to combine theism, materialism , and determinism , a project that has been called "audacious and original". He believed that
5499-439: The general law was enunciated by French physicist Charles-Augustin de Coulomb in the 1780s. Priestley's strength as a natural philosopher was qualitative rather than quantitative and his observation of "a current of real air" between two electrified points would later interest Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell as they investigated electromagnetism . Priestley's text became the standard history of electricity for over
5616-501: The present , future , and imperfect are imperfective in aspect; the aorist , present perfect , pluperfect and future perfect are perfective in aspect. Most tenses display all four moods and three voices, although there is no future subjunctive or imperative. Also, there is no imperfect subjunctive, optative or imperative. The infinitives and participles correspond to the finite combinations of tense, aspect, and voice. The indicative of past tenses adds (conceptually, at least)
5733-454: The "Athens of the North" (of England) during the 18th century, encouraged Priestley's growing interest in natural philosophy. He gave lectures on anatomy and performed experiments regarding temperature with another tutor at Warrington, his friend John Seddon . Despite Priestley's busy teaching schedule, he decided to write a history of electricity. Friends introduced him to the major experimenters in
5850-508: The "corruptions" which had accumulated over the centuries. The fourth part of the Institutes , An History of the Corruptions of Christianity , became so long that he was forced to issue it separately in 1782. Priestley believed that the Corruptions was "the most valuable" work he ever published. In demanding that his readers apply the logic of the emerging sciences and comparative history to
5967-444: The (corpuscular) particle theory of light, influenced by the works of Reverend John Rowning and others. Furthermore, he did not include any of the practical sections that had made his History of Electricity so useful to practising natural philosophers. Unlike his History of Electricity , it was not popular and had only one edition, although it was the only English book on the topic for 150 years. The hastily written text sold poorly;
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#17328812598176084-1031: The 5th century BC. Ancient pronunciation cannot be reconstructed with certainty, but Greek from the period is well documented, and there is little disagreement among linguists as to the general nature of the sounds that the letters represent. /oː/ raised to [uː] , probably by the 4th century BC. Greek, like all of the older Indo-European languages , is highly inflected. It is highly archaic in its preservation of Proto-Indo-European forms. In ancient Greek, nouns (including proper nouns) have five cases ( nominative , genitive , dative , accusative , and vocative ), three genders ( masculine , feminine , and neuter ), and three numbers (singular, dual , and plural ). Verbs have four moods ( indicative , imperative , subjunctive , and optative ) and three voices (active, middle, and passive ), as well as three persons (first, second, and third) and various other forms. Verbs are conjugated through seven combinations of tenses and aspect (generally simply called "tenses"):
6201-490: The Archaic period of ancient Greek (see Homeric Greek for more details): Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκε, πολλὰς δ' ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι· Διὸς δ' ἐτελείετο βουλή· ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς. The beginning of Apology by Plato exemplifies Attic Greek from
6318-458: The Bible and Christianity, he alienated religious and scientific readers alike—scientific readers did not appreciate seeing science used in the defence of religion and religious readers dismissed the application of science to religion. Priestley engaged in numerous political and religious pamphlet wars. According to Schofield, "he entered each controversy with a cheerful conviction that he was right, while most of his opponents were convinced, from
6435-464: The Church of England was a crime and that Dissenters could not be loyal subjects. Furious, Priestley lashed out with his Remarks on Dr. Blackstone's Commentaries (1769), correcting Blackstone's interpretation of the law, his grammar (a highly politicised subject at the time), and history. Blackstone, chastened, altered subsequent editions of his Commentaries : he rephrased the offending passages and removed
6552-562: The Church of England. Dissenters repeatedly petitioned Parliament to repeal the Acts, arguing that they were being treated as second-class citizens. Priestley's friends, particularly other Rational Dissenters, urged him to publish a work on the injustices experienced by Dissenters; the result was his Essay on the First Principles of Government (1768). An early work of modern liberal political theory and Priestley's most thorough treatment of
6669-751: The Classical period of ancient Greek. (The second line is the IPA , the third is transliterated into the Latin alphabet using a modern version of the Erasmian scheme .) Ὅτι [hóti Hóti μὲν men mèn ὑμεῖς, hyːmêːs hūmeîs, Joseph Priestley Joseph Priestley FRS ( / ˈ p r iː s t l i / ; 24 March 1733 – 6 February 1804) was an English chemist , Unitarian, natural philosopher , separatist theologian , grammarian , multi-subject educator and classical liberal political theorist . He published over 150 works, and conducted experiments in several areas of science. Priestley
6786-551: The Royal Society recognised Priestley's achievements in natural philosophy by awarding him the Copley Medal . Priestley's friends wanted to find him a more financially secure position. In 1772, prompted by Richard Price and Benjamin Franklin, Lord Shelburne wrote to Priestley asking him to direct the education of his children and to act as his general assistant. Although Priestley was reluctant to sacrifice his ministry, he accepted
6903-550: The aorist. Following Homer 's practice, the augment is sometimes not made in poetry , especially epic poetry. The augment sometimes substitutes for reduplication; see below. Almost all forms of the perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect reduplicate the initial syllable of the verb stem. (A few irregular forms of perfect do not reduplicate, whereas a handful of irregular aorists reduplicate.) The three types of reduplication are: Irregular duplication can be understood diachronically. For example, lambanō (root lab ) has
7020-419: The augment when it was word-initial. In verbs with a preposition as a prefix, the augment is placed not at the start of the word, but between the preposition and the original verb. For example, προσ(-)βάλλω (I attack) goes to προσ έ βαλoν in the aorist. However compound verbs consisting of a prefix that is not a preposition retain the augment at the start of the word: αὐτο(-)μολῶ goes to ηὐ τομόλησα in
7137-598: The basis for radiosity calculations required to produce architectural renderings. Photometria had a significant, though long-delayed influence on technology and commerce once the Industrial Revolution was well underway, and is the reason that it was one of the books listed in Printing and the Mind of Man . Ancient Greek language Ancient Greek ( Ἑλληνῐκή , Hellēnikḗ ; [hellɛːnikɛ́ː] ) includes
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#17328812598177254-438: The center of Greek scholarship, this division of people and language is quite similar to the results of modern archaeological-linguistic investigation. One standard formulation for the dialects is: West vs. non-West Greek is the strongest-marked and earliest division, with non-West in subsets of Ionic-Attic (or Attic-Ionic) and Aeolic vs. Arcadocypriot, or Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot vs. Ionic-Attic. Often non-West
7371-503: The charismatic Methodist movement . Priestley believed that he could strengthen the bonds of the congregation by educating the young people there. In his three-volume Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion (1772–74), Priestley outlined his theories of religious instruction. More importantly, he laid out his belief in Socinianism . The doctrines he explicated would become the standards for Unitarians in Britain. This work marked
7488-524: The cost of researching, writing, and publishing the Optics convinced Priestley to abandon his history of experimental philosophy. Priestley was considered for the position of astronomer on James Cook 's second voyage to the South Seas , but was not chosen. Still, he contributed in a small way to the voyage: he provided the crew with a method for making carbonated water , which he erroneously speculated might be
7605-501: The description of English grammar, particularly his efforts to dissociate it from Latin grammar , led 20th-century scholars to describe him as "one of the great grammarians of his time". After the publication of Rudiments and the success of Priestley's school, Warrington Academy offered him a teaching position in 1761. In 1761, Priestley moved to Warrington in Cheshire and assumed the post of tutor of modern languages and rhetoric at
7722-611: The dialect of Sparta ), and Northern Peloponnesus Doric (including Corinthian ). All the groups were represented by colonies beyond Greece proper as well, and these colonies generally developed local characteristics, often under the influence of settlers or neighbors speaking different Greek dialects. After the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BC, a new international dialect known as Koine or Common Greek developed, largely based on Attic Greek , but with influence from other dialects. This dialect slowly replaced most of
7839-457: The electrical properties of materials and on the electrical effects of chemical transformations demonstrated Priestley's early and ongoing interest in the relationship between chemical substances and electricity. Based on experiments with charged spheres, Priestley was among the first to propose that electrical force followed an inverse-square law , similar to Newton's law of universal gravitation . He did not generalise or elaborate on this, and
7956-599: The experiment for others, including French chemist Antoine Lavoisier . After returning to Britain in January 1775, he continued his experiments and discovered "vitriolic acid air" ( sulphur dioxide , SO 2 ). In March he wrote to several people regarding the new "air" that he had discovered in August. One of these letters was read aloud to the Royal Society, and a paper outlining the discovery, titled "An Account of further Discoveries in Air",
8073-534: The field in Britain— John Canton , William Watson , Timothy Lane , and the visiting Benjamin Franklin who encouraged Priestley to perform the experiments he wanted to include in his history. Priestley also consulted with Franklin during the latter's kite experiments. In the process of replicating others' experiments, Priestley became intrigued by unanswered questions and was prompted to undertake experiments of his own design. (Impressed with his Charts and
8190-592: The fifth reported on the conductivity of charcoals from different sources. His subsequent experimental work focused on chemistry and pneumatics . Priestley published the first volume of his projected history of experimental philosophy, The History and Present State of Discoveries Relating to Vision, Light and Colours (referred to as his Optics ), in 1772. He paid careful attention to the history of optics and presented excellent explanations of early optics experiments, but his mathematical deficiencies caused him to dismiss several important contemporary theories. He followed
8307-561: The first to isolate the gas (although he published after Priestley) and Lavoisier having been the first to describe it as purified "air itself entire without alteration" (that is, the first to explain oxygen without phlogiston theory). In his paper "Observations on Respiration and the Use of the Blood", Priestley was the first to suggest a connection between blood and air, although he did so using phlogiston theory . In typical Priestley fashion, he prefaced
8424-663: The forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek ( c. 1400–1200 BC ), Dark Ages ( c. 1200–800 BC ), the Archaic or Epic period ( c. 800–500 BC ), and the Classical period ( c. 500–300 BC ). Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers . It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been
8541-528: The foundation of new Unitarian chapels throughout Britain and the United States. Priestley's years in Calne were the only ones in his life dominated by scientific investigations; they were also the most scientifically fruitful. His experiments were almost entirely confined to "airs", and out of this work emerged his most important scientific texts: the six volumes of Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air (1774–86). These experiments helped repudiate
8658-556: The historical Dorians . The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, who regarded themselves as descendants of the population displaced by or contending with the Dorians. The Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people – Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians (including Athenians), each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Allowing for their oversight of Arcadian, an obscure mountain dialect, and Cypriot, far from
8775-472: The historical circumstances of the times imply that the overall groups already existed in some form. Scholars assume that major Ancient Greek period dialect groups developed not later than 1120 BC, at the time of the Dorian invasions —and that their first appearances as precise alphabetic writing began in the 8th century BC. The invasion would not be "Dorian" unless the invaders had some cultural relationship to
8892-403: The inquiry. Priestley reported some of his own discoveries in the second section, such as the conductivity of charcoal and other substances and the continuum between conductors and non-conductors. This discovery overturned what he described as "one of the earliest and universally received maxims of electricity", that only water and metals could conduct electricity. This and other experiments on
9009-412: The last vestiges of the theory of four elements , which Priestley attempted to replace with his own variation of phlogiston theory . According to that 18th-century theory, the combustion or oxidation of a substance corresponded to the release of a material substance, phlogiston . Priestley's work on "airs" is not easily classified. As historian of science Simon Schaffer writes, it "has been seen as
9126-453: The list of books not yet procured. Priestley makes a specific reference to Photometria ; that it was an important book but unprocurable. An abridged German translation of Photometria appeared in 1892, a French translation in 1997, and an English translation in 2000. Photometria presented significant advances and it was, perhaps, for that very reason that its appearance was greeted with general indifference. The central optical question in
9243-457: The manuscript of his history of electricity, Canton, Franklin, Watson, and Richard Price nominated Priestley for a fellowship in the Royal Society ; he was accepted in 1766.) In 1767, the 700-page The History and Present State of Electricity was published to positive reviews. The first half of the text is a history of the study of electricity to 1766; the second and more influential half
9360-409: The material universe. Leibniz and Priestley share an optimism that God has chosen the chain of events benevolently; however, Priestley believed that the events were leading to a glorious millennial conclusion, whereas for Leibniz the entire chain of events was optimal in and of itself, as compared with other conceivable chains of events. When Priestley's friend Theophilus Lindsey decided to found
9477-517: The middle of the 18th century was: what is the nature of light? Lambert's work was not related to this issue at all and so Photometria received no immediate systematic evaluation, and was not incorporated into the mainstream of optical science. The first appraisal of Photometria appeared in 1776 in Georg Simon Klügel ’s German translation of Priestley’s 1772 survey of optics. An elaborate reworking and annotation appeared in 1777. Photometria
9594-566: The most influential timelines published in the 18th century. Both were popular for decades, and the trustees of Warrington were so impressed with Priestley's lectures and charts that they arranged for the University of Edinburgh to grant him a Doctor of Law degree in 1764. During this period Priestley also regularly delivered lectures on rhetoric that were later published in 1777 as A Course of Lectures on Oratory and Criticism . The intellectually stimulating atmosphere of Warrington, often called
9711-400: The most refreshing candour." Priestley also described his cheap and easy-to-assemble experimental apparatus; his colleagues therefore believed that they could easily reproduce his experiments. Faced with inconsistent experimental results, Priestley employed phlogiston theory. This led him to conclude that there were only three types of "air": "fixed", "alkaline", and "acid". Priestley dismissed
9828-651: The natural world. Since his views of religion were tied deeply to his understanding of nature, the text's theism rested on the argument from design . The Institutes shocked and appalled many readers, primarily because it challenged basic Christian orthodoxies, such as the divinity of Christ and the miracle of the Virgin Birth . Methodists in Leeds penned a hymn asking God to "the Unitarian fiend expel / And chase his doctrine back to Hell." Priestley wanted to return Christianity to its "primitive" or "pure" form by eliminating
9945-499: The older dialects, although the Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language , which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek . By about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosed into Medieval Greek . Phrygian is an extinct Indo-European language of West and Central Anatolia , which
10062-626: The only way available at the time: by contriving often ingenious optical arrangements that could make two immediately adjacent luminous fields appear equally bright (something that could only be determined by visual observation) when two physical quantities that produced the two fields were unequal by some specific amount (things that could be directly measured, such as angle or distance). In this way, Lambert quantified purely visual properties (such as luminous power, illumination, transparency, reflectivity) by relating them to physical parameters (such as distance, angle, radiant power, and color). Today, this
10179-493: The outset, that he was willfully and maliciously wrong. He was able, then, to contrast his sweet reasonableness to their personal rancor", but as Schofield points out Priestley rarely altered his opinion as a result of these debates. While at Leeds he wrote controversial pamphlets on the Lord's Supper and on Calvinist doctrine; thousands of copies were published, making them some of Priestley's most widely read works. Priestley founded
10296-466: The paper with a history of the study of respiration. A year later, clearly influenced by Priestley, Lavoisier was also discussing respiration at the Académie des sciences . Lavoisier's work began the long train of discovery that produced papers on oxygen respiration and culminated in the overthrow of phlogiston theory and the establishment of modern chemistry. Around 1779 Priestley and Shelburne – soon to be
10413-487: The perfect stem eilēpha (not * lelēpha ) because it was originally slambanō , with perfect seslēpha , becoming eilēpha through compensatory lengthening. Reduplication is also visible in the present tense stems of certain verbs. These stems add a syllable consisting of the root's initial consonant followed by i . A nasal stop appears after the reduplication in some verbs. The earliest extant examples of ancient Greek writing ( c. 1450 BC ) are in
10530-513: The position, resigning from Mill Hill Chapel on 20 December 1772, and preaching his last sermon on 16 May 1773. In 1773, the Priestleys moved to Calne in Wiltshire , and a year later Lord Shelburne and Priestley took a tour of Europe. According to Priestley's close friend Theophilus Lindsey , Priestley was "much improved by this view of mankind at large". Upon their return, Priestley easily fulfilled his duties as librarian and tutor. The workload
10647-439: The preface how important such discoveries were to rational religion. His paper narrated the discovery chronologically, relating the long delays between experiments and his initial puzzlements; thus, it is difficult to determine when exactly Priestley "discovered" oxygen. Such dating is significant as both Lavoisier and Swedish pharmacist Carl Wilhelm Scheele have strong claims to the discovery of oxygen as well, Scheele having been
10764-534: The printer had the book available by June 1760. Maria Jakobina Klett (1709–1795) was the owner of Eberhard Klett Verlag, one of the most important Augsburg “Protestant publishers.” She published many technical books, including Lambert’s Photometria , and 10 of his other works. Klett used Christoph Peter Detleffsen (1731–1774) to print Photometria . Its first and only printing was small, and within 10 years copies were difficult to obtain. In Joseph Priestley 's survey of optics of 1772, “Lambert’s Photometrie” appears in
10881-445: The problems of free will, determinism, and materialism. For example, the 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza argued for absolute determinism and absolute materialism. Like Spinoza and Priestley, Leibniz argued that human will was completely determined by natural laws; unlike them, Leibniz argued for a "parallel universe" of immaterial objects (such as human souls) so arranged by God that its outcomes agree exactly with those of
10998-643: The progress of humanity and, paradoxically, the loss of a pure, "primitive Christianity". In his Essay on a Course of Liberal Education for Civil and Active Life (1765), Lectures on History and General Policy (1788), and other works, Priestley argued that the education of the young should anticipate their future practical needs. This principle of utility guided his unconventional curricular choices for Warrington's aspiring middle-class students. He recommended modern languages instead of classical languages and modern rather than ancient history. Priestley's lectures on history were particularly revolutionary; he narrated
11115-400: The prosecution of my studies, and the other duties of my station. On 17 April 1763, they had a daughter, whom they named Sarah after Priestley's aunt. All of the books Priestley published while at Warrington emphasised the study of history; Priestley considered it essential for worldly success as well as religious growth. He wrote histories of science and Christianity in an effort to reveal
11232-428: The publication of a seminal work on English grammar and books on history; he prepared some of the most influential early timelines. The educational writings were among Priestley's most popular works. Arguably his metaphysical works, however, had the most lasting influence, as now considered primary sources for utilitarianism by philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham , John Stuart Mill , and Herbert Spencer . Priestley
11349-408: The purpose of respiration, inflammation, and, I believe, every other use of common atmospherical air". He had discovered oxygen gas (O 2 ). Priestley assembled his oxygen paper and several others into a second volume of Experiments and Observations on Air , published in 1776. He did not emphasise his discovery of "dephlogisticated air" (leaving it to Part III of the volume) but instead argued in
11466-446: The sections claiming that Dissenters could not be loyal subjects, but he retained his description of Dissent as a crime. Although Priestley claimed that natural philosophy was only a hobby, he took it seriously. In his History of Electricity , he described the scientist as promoting the "security and happiness of mankind". Priestley's science was eminently practical and he rarely concerned himself with theoretical questions; his model
11583-497: The state. Priestley's later radicalism emerged from his belief that the British government was infringing upon these individual freedoms. Priestley also defended the rights of Dissenters against the attacks of William Blackstone , an eminent legal theorist, whose Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–69) had become the standard legal guide. Blackstone's book stated that dissent from
11700-643: The study of history was a moral imperative for Priestley, he also promoted the education of middle-class women, which was unusual at the time. Some scholars of education have described Priestley as the most important English writer on education between the 17th-century John Locke and the 19th-century Herbert Spencer . Lectures on History was well received and was employed by many educational institutions, such as New College at Hackney, Brown , Princeton , Yale , and Cambridge . Priestley designed two Charts to serve as visual study aids for his Lectures . These charts are in fact timelines; they have been described as
11817-402: The subject, it—unusually for the time—distinguished political rights from civil rights with precision and argued for expansive civil rights. Priestley identified separate private and public spheres, contending that the government should have control only over the public sphere. Education and religion, in particular, he maintained, were matters of private conscience and should not be administered by
11934-517: The syllabic script Linear B . Beginning in the 8th century BC, however, the Greek alphabet became standard, albeit with some variation among dialects. Early texts are written in boustrophedon style, but left-to-right became standard during the classic period. Modern editions of ancient Greek texts are usually written with accents and breathing marks , interword spacing , modern punctuation , and sometimes mixed case , but these were all introduced later. The beginning of Homer 's Iliad exemplifies
12051-520: The town's Dissenting academy , although he would have preferred to teach mathematics and natural philosophy. He fitted in well at Warrington, and made friends quickly. These included the doctor and writer John Aikin , his sister the children's author Anna Laetitia Aikin , and the potter and businessman Josiah Wedgwood . Wedgwood met Priestley in 1762, after a fall from his horse. Wedgwood and Priestley met rarely, but exchanged letters, advice on chemistry, and laboratory equipment. Wedgwood eventually created
12168-447: The town's Hospital Street; his time there was happier. The congregation cared less about Priestley's heterodoxy and he successfully established a school. Unlike many schoolmasters of the time, Priestley taught his students natural philosophy and even bought scientific instruments for them. Appalled at the quality of the available English grammar books, Priestley wrote his own: The Rudiments of English Grammar (1761). His innovations in
12285-521: The universe is made of matter that we can perceive. He also contended that discussing the soul is impossible because it is made of a divine substance, and humanity cannot perceive the divine. Despite his separation of the divine from the mortal, this position shocked and angered many of his readers, who believed that such a duality was necessary for the soul to exist. Responding to Baron d'Holbach 's Système de la Nature (1770) and David Hume 's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779) as well as
12402-414: The wave-particle duality was established) he was certain that light's interaction with materials and its effect on vision could be quantified. Mathematics was for Lambert not only indispensable for this quantification but also the indisputable sign of rigor. He used linear algebra and calculus extensively with matter-of-fact confidence that was uncommon in optical works of the time. On this basis, Photometria
12519-560: The wealthy and childless Sarah (d. 1764) and John Keighley, 3 miles (4.8 km) from Fieldhead. Priestley was a precocious child—at the age of four, he could flawlessly recite all 107 questions and answers of the Westminster Shorter Catechism —and his aunt sought the best education for him, intending him to enter ministry. During his youth, Priestley attended local schools, where he learned Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. Around 1749, Priestley became seriously ill and believed he
12636-446: The works of Isaac Watts , Willem 's Gravesande , and John Locke . Priestley eventually decided to return to his theological studies and, in 1752, matriculated at Daventry , a Dissenting academy. Because he was already widely read, Priestley was allowed to omit the first two years of coursework. He continued his intense study; this, together with the liberal atmosphere of the school, shifted his theology further leftward and he became
12753-527: The works of the French philosophers , Priestley maintained that materialism and determinism could be reconciled with a belief in God. He criticised those whose faith was shaped by books and fashion, drawing an analogy between the scepticism of educated men and the credulity of the masses. Maintaining that humans had no free will , Priestley argued that what he called "philosophical necessity" (akin to absolute determinism)
12870-475: Was Aeolic. For example, fragments of the works of the poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos are in Aeolian. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, or to an island. Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric (including Cretan Doric ), Southern Peloponnesus Doric (including Laconian ,
12987-627: Was born in Birstall (near Batley ) in the West Riding of Yorkshire , to an established English Dissenting family who did not conform to the Church of England . He was the oldest of six children born to Mary Swift and Jonas Priestley, a finisher of cloth. Priestley was sent to live with his grandfather around the age of one. He returned home five years later, after his mother died. When his father remarried in 1741, Priestley went to live with his aunt and uncle,
13104-487: Was dying. Raised as a devout Calvinist , he believed a conversion experience was necessary for salvation, but doubted he had had one. This emotional distress eventually led him to question his theological upbringing, causing him to reject election and to accept universal salvation . As a result, the elders of his home church, the Independent Upper Chapel of Heckmondwike , near Leeds, refused him admission as
13221-426: Was his close friend, Benjamin Franklin. When he moved to Leeds , Priestley continued his electrical and chemical experiments (the latter aided by a steady supply of carbon dioxide from a neighbouring brewery). Between 1767 and 1770, he presented five papers to the Royal Society from these initial experiments; the first four papers explored coronal discharges and other phenomena related to electrical discharge , while
13338-496: Was intentionally light, allowing him time to pursue his scientific investigations and theological interests. Priestley also became a political adviser to Shelburne, gathering information on parliamentary issues and serving as a liaison between Shelburne and the Dissenting and American interests. When the Priestleys' third son was born on 24 May 1777, they named him Henry at the lord's request. Priestley wrote his most important philosophical works during his years with Lord Shelburne. In
13455-459: Was no longer a Calvinist. To earn extra money, Priestley proposed opening a school, but local families informed him that they would refuse to send their children. He also presented a series of scientific lectures titled "Use of the Globes" that was more successful. Priestley's Daventry friends helped him obtain another position and in 1758 he moved to Nantwich , Cheshire, living at Sweetbriar Hall in
13572-433: Was not seriously evaluated and utilized until nearly a century after its publication, when the science of astronomy and the commerce of gas lighting needed photometry. Fifty years after that, Illuminating Engineering took up Lambert's results as the basis for lighting calculations that accompanied the great expanse of lighting early in the 20th century. Fifty years after that, computer graphics took up Lambert's results as
13689-465: Was published in the Society's journal Philosophical Transactions . Priestley called the new substance "dephlogisticated air", which he made in the famous experiment by focusing the sun's rays on a sample of mercuric oxide . He first tested it on mice, who surprised him by surviving quite a while entrapped with the air, and then on himself, writing that it was "five or six times better than common air for
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