PRICE, Richard, D.D. and LL.D., Fellow of the Royal Society of London, and of the Academy of Sciences, New England, was born at Tynton, in Glamorganshire, on the 22d of February 1723. His father was a dissenting minister at Bridgend, in that county, and died in I739. At eight years of age he was placed under a Mr. Simmons of Neath; and four years afterwards be was removed to Pentwyn, in Caermarthenshire, where he was placed under the Rev. Samuel Jones, whom he represented as a man of a very enlarged mind, and who first inspired him with liberal sentiments of religion. Having lived as long with him as with Mr. Simmons, he was sent to Mr. Griffith’s academy at Talgarth, in Breconshire. In 1740 he lost his mother, upon which he quitted the academy and proceeded to London. Here he was settled at the academy, of which Mr. Eames acted as the principal tutor, under the patronage of his uncle, the Rev. S. Price, who was, for upwards of forty years, co-pastor with Dr. Watts. At the end of four years he left this academy, and resided with Mr. Streatfield, of §toke Newington, in the quality of domestic chaplain; whilst at the same time he regulari y assisted Dr. Chandler at the Old Jewry, and occasionally assisted others. Having lived with Mr. Streatfield nearly thirteen years, he was induced to change his situation, and in the year 1757 married Miss Blundell of Leicestershire. He then settled at Hackney, but being shortly afterwards chosen minister at Newington Green, he lived there until the death of his wife, which took place in 1786, when he returned to Hackney. He rvas next chosen afternoon-preacher at the meeting-house in Poor Jewry Street; but this he resigned on being elected paster of the Gravel-pit Meeting, Hackney, and afternoon-preacher at Newington Green. These he resigned with a fare well-sermon in February1791∙ Shortly afterwards he was attacked with a nervous fever, which disappeared and was succeeded by a disorder in his bladder, which reduced him to such a degree, that, worn out with agony and disease, he died without a groan on the 19th of April 179l∙ He bequeathed his property to a sister and two nephews.

In morals, Dr. Price’s principles were those of Cudworth and Clarke; and by many persons who have themselves adopted a very different theory, he is allowed to have defended these principles with greater ability than any other writer in the English language. In metaphysics he was perhaps too great an admirer of Plato, from whom he has borrow ed a doctrine concerning ideas which we confess ourselves unable to comprehend. He was a firm believer in the immateriality of the soul; but, with Dr. Law, the learned bishop of Carlisle, he thought that, from death to the resurrection [7:18:530]of the body, it remains in a dormant and quiescent state. He contended for its indivisibility, but maintained, at the same time, its extension; which, in the celebrated controversy with Dr. Priestley, furnished the latter with some advan tageswhich his own acutenesswould never have obtained. In propagating his political principles, which were republican, he sometimes expressed himself with undue vehemence; and he was a zealous enemy to all religious establishments, which, in his opinion, encroach upon that liberty with which Christ has made us free. His faith respecting the Son of God was what has sometimes been called Low Arianism, and sometimes Semi-Arianism. From a very early age he claimed the privilege of thinking for himself on every subject. His father was a rigid Calvinist, and spared no pains to instil his own theological dogmas into the tender mind of his son; but young Richard would often start his doubts and difficulties, and sometimes incur the old man’s displeasure by arguing against his favourite system with an ingenuity that perplexed, and a solidity that could not easily be overturned. He had once the misfortune to be caught reading a volume of Clarke’s sermons, which his father, in great wrath, snatched from him, and threw into the fire. Perhaps he could not have taken a more effectual method to make the book a favourite, or to excite the young man’s curiosity in regard to the other works of the same author; and it is by no means improbable that this orthodox bigotry contributed more than any other circumstance to lay the foundation of his son’s Arianism.

In 1763 or 1764 he was chosen a fellow of the Royal Society, and contributed largely to the transactions of that learned body; in 1769 he received from Aberdeen a diploma creating him Doctor of Divinity; and in 1783 the degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred upon him by the college of Yale in Connecticut. As in the year 1770 he refused an American degree, which had been conveyed to him by Dr. Franklin, his acceptance of one, thirteen years afterwards, can be attributed only to his extravagant attachment to a republican form of government.

To posterity his works will be his monument. They are, 1, A Review of the Principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals, 1758, 8vo.; 2, Dissertations on Providence, 1767, 8vo∙; 3, Observations on Reversionary Payments, 1771, 8vo.; 4, Appeal on the National Debt, 1773, 8vo.; 5, Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, 1776; 6, On Materialism and Necessity, in a correspondence between Dr. Price and Dr. Priestley, 1779; 7, On Annuities, Assurances, and Population, 1779, 8vo.; 8, On the Population of England, 1780; 9, On the Public Debts, Finances, and Loans, 1783, 8vo.; 10, On Reversionary Payments, 1783, 2 vols.; 11, On the Importance of the American Revolution, 1784; besides Sermons, and a variety of Papers in the Philosophical Transactions on Astronomy, and other philosophical subjects.