We seem not to know that when we employ the word water where no sensible existence is discoverable, the word partakes immediately of the nothingness to which we apply it. Words are in some respects like a mirror. When you remove all objects from before it, the mirror no longer reflects any image, but becomes void; and when you remove from a word all reference to sensible existences, the word no longer signifies any sensible existence, but becomes void. We seldom, however, use a word without referring to something for its signification. This remark applies to even several of the instances adduced in my last lecture; hence those instances will not strictly illustrate the errour which the lecture sought to illustrate for example, the picture which is alleged to be on the retina of your eye, I denounced as a word divested of signification. This is not strictly true. The picture refers to certain experiments which can be made with a dissected eye; and it refers also to various other sensible illustrations which belong to the theory of which the picture is a part.

§ 2.-Words signify the objects to which they are applied.

Words possess another analogy to mirrors. A mirror which, at one moment, reflects the image of a man, may, at another moment, reflect the image of a chair, a cat, or a canary bird. The mirror conforms to the object which is placed before it, and, in like manner, every word conforms in signification to the object to which it is applied. The word William, when applied to a child, signifies the child; and when applied to a flower, signifies the flower. This estimation of words constitutes the topick of the present lecture.

§ 3.—Every word is a general term, and applies to a multitude of diverse existences.

After we find, by examination, that an object is a unit, red, hard, solid; we must examine the object further, to learn the meaning of the words unit, red, hard, and solid: -for the meaning of a word varies with every different application of it. My hand is red, blood is red, hair is often red, the moon is some

times red, fire is red, and Indians are red. These objects possess a congruity of appearance that entitles them all to the appellation of red; but the precise meaning of the word in each application is the sight itself which the object exhibits. Whether an object shall or not be called red is a question which relates to the propriety of phraseology, and with which nature has no concern; but the meaning of the word red in each application, is a question which relates solely to nature, and with which language has no concern:-at least, language possesses over it no control.

§ 4.—We attribute to nature the generality which belongs to language.

Should we attend to the minute discriminations that can be discovered in the sights which we now denominate red, and instead of calling them all red, give a separate name to each sight; language would be too copious for memory, and no adequate benefit would result from our prolixity. We should still be forced to resort to nature when we wished to know the sensible meaning of each word. The necessity which prompts us to employ the word red as a general name to a mass of varying individual appearances, prompts us to employ nearly every other word in a manner equally general. The infinity of objects and relations about which language discourses, can in no other way be comprehended by the few thousand words that compose language. A curious inattention, however, to the nature of language, induces us to measure the sameness of different sights by the sameness of their name (red); instead of qualifying the sameness of the name by the diverse appearance of the different sights. A like errour exists in the use to which we apply every word.

§5.—Instead of qualifying the meaning of a word by the existence to which we apply the word, we estimate the existence by the word.

In a preceding discourse, we have discussed so much of our present lecture as relates to the sensible diversity which exists

in objects that are nominally identical. Dismissing, therefore, that topick, I shall proceed to show that in the use of language generally, we invert the order of nature; and instead of qualifying the meaning of a word by the existence to which we apply the word, we estimate the existence by the word :*-for instance, after a moment's exposure, a drop of the otto of roses will fill with odour many rooms, while the drop will exhibit no diminution of size. This phenomenon is too common to excite admiration, but much may be excited if you exhibit the experiment to teach a person the expansiveness of matter. He will now snuff the odour with astonishment. Bless me! how wonderfully a little matter may be expanded! A dozen rooms are full of it! The person is evidently interpreting the smell by the phrase "expansiveness of matter." He knows not that the phrase should be interpreted by the smell.

§ 6.—But if he is astonished at the preceding, what will he say of the particles of light? They fall, says natural philosophy, millions of miles, and with a velocity so wonderful, as to accomplish the descent in an instant; still they hurt not the eye though they alight immediately on that susceptible organ. A man, grown old under the rays of the sun, may be astonished at this recital. The astonishment is produced by the language, and not by light. He interprets the words fall and particles, not by what his senses discover in light; but he interprets what his senses discover in light, by the words particles and fall: hence, when he is informed further, that philosophers have in vain endeavoured, with the nicest balances, to discover weight in sunbeams, (even when the number of particles thrown into a scale has been multipled by a powerful lens,) the experiment increases his wonder at the smallness of the particles; though it ought to teach him that the mystery is nothing but a latent

* When men first attempted to spell, they resolved every word into such letters as would best express the sound of the word. The sound was the standard, and the letters approximated to it as well as they could. In our day, however, the process is reversed. The letters are the standard, (in our country at least,) of the sound of the word; and very awkwardly sounding words the superficially learned (who adopt this unnatural standard) occasionally make. Thus to subordinate oral words to the letters into which orthography resolves the words, is a species of retribution on words for the authority that words have usurped over natural existences.

sophistry of language. The word particle when applied to light, means the existence only to which it is applied. It names a sight. When applied to stone, it names a feel as well as a sight. To wonder that the eye cannot feel the particles of light, is to wonder that it cannot feel a sight. We may as well wonder that we cannot taste sounds, and hear smells.

§ 7.—We must resort to our senses for the sensible meaning of a word, and not to a dictionary.

We cast into a tub of water a small piece of indigo, and the water becomes tinged with blue; we cast into another tub of water a lump of sugar, and the water becomes sweet; we open our shutters, and light becomes perceptible throughout our room; we ignite a few sticks of wood, and the mercury will rise in a distant thermometer:-these results possess a certain congruity, hence we say, the indigo and sugar are diffused through the water;—the light and heat are diffused through the room. If, however, we wish to discover the sensible meaning of the word diffused, in these several uses, we must resort to our senses, and not to our dictionaries. The sensible meaning is so diverse in the above different applications of the word diffused, that a blind man will possess no conception of the diffusion that refers to the light and indigo; while a man who never possessed tasting, will possess no conception of the diffusion which refers to the sugar.

§ 8.—We must discriminate between the question which relates to the appropriateness of a word, and its signification.

Every word refers for signification as scrupulously to the existence to which it is applied, as a pronoun refers for signification to the substantive whose place it supplies. I may say that two sounds look alike. Whether the expression is appropriate or not depends on custom; but whether the expression is significant or not, and what it signifies, depend on nature :the expression will signify any sensible revelation to which it refers; and if it refers to nothing, it will signify nothing.

§ 9.—Interpreting nature by language enables us to communicate an artificial interest to scientifick experiments.

When you exhibit the passage of light through a prism, you may assert, that the light which enters on one side of the prism is composed of the gorgeous colours that are emitted from the other side. This language gives to the experiment an interest which the exhibition alone will not excite. The spectator will not interpret your language by what he is beholding; but he will interpret what he is beholding by your language. You may, however, say, that the prismatic experiment is not all that you refer to when you say light is composed of the prismatic colours. This impairs not my position. If you refer to other experiments, they will constitute a part of the meaning of the phrase. The phrase will mean every sensible revelation to which it refers, but nothing more: -so long as you confine its signification to the realities of the external universe.

§ 10. The language in which every experiment is announced must be interpreted by the experiment. We must not interpret the experiment by the language.

The experimenter may tell you, that as you have seen a ray

of light untwisted by the prism, and split into its constituent threads; he will collect the filaments, and retwist them into their original form. With this preface, he will cause the coloured rays to pass through a lens which will converge them to a focus of light in its usual colour. The experiment is interesting. I wish not to depreciate it, but it constitutes all the sensible signification that the experimenter's language possesses. We must interpret the language by the experiment, and not interpret the experiment by the language. A dumb mute who may witness the exhibition will possess all the knowledge on the subject which we possess. If the language which we apply to the experiment tends in the least to increase, diminish, or alter the information that we receive from seeing the experiment, the dumb mute will estimate it more correctly than we.