century is other and better than the eighteenth, it is, in great
measure, to him, and to such men as he, that we owe the change. If the
twentieth century is to be better than the nineteenth, it will be
because there are among us men who walk in Priestley's footsteps.

Such men are not those whom their own generation delights to honour;
such men, in fact, rarely trouble themselves about honour, but ask, in
another spirit than Falstaff's, "What is honour? Who hath it? He that
died o' Wednesday." But whether Priestley's lot be theirs, and a future
generation, in justice and in gratitude, set up their statues; or
whether their names and fame are blotted out from remembrance, their
work will live as long as time endures. To all eternity, the sum of
truth and right will have been increased by their means; to all
eternity, falsehood and injustice will be the weaker because they have
lived.

* * * * *

Footnotes:

[1] "Quasi cursores, vitai lampada tradunt."--LUCR. _De Rerum Nat_. ii.
78.

[2] _Life and Correspondence of Dr. Priestley_, by J. T. Rutt. Vol. I.
p. 50.

[3] _Autobiography_, s.s. 100, 101.

[4] See _The Life of Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck_. Mrs.
Schimmelpenninck (_nee_ Galton) remembered Priestley very well,