LECTURE XII.

MUCH of my life was passed with persons who employed nearly ceaseless interrogatories. Questions, at length, became to me a species of persecution; and I can now scarcely hear one propounded without an impulse towards irritation.

This state of feeling probably led me to reflect on the nature of questions, and I find no subject so little understood. It is a field which is not only ungleaned, but unreaped. Every thing, as yet, stands unmarked by the feet of curiosity, and untrained by the hand of cultivation. Like the eye, which sees every thing but itself, so questions have interrogated the whole universe, with the exception of themselves. To supply this deficiency is, you will recollect, the object of the present Discourse.

In a late gazette a person is introduced who had per

forated the earth to discover a salt spring. At a given depth he found water, and observed the continued ascent of inflammable air. He solicits philosophers to tell him whether the gas exists naturally at the bottom of his perforation, or is caused by the decomposition of water.

The above inquiry coincides with the opinion which is generally entertained of philosophy. A philosopher is deemed a species of necromancer. He is thought capable of making discoveries without the agency of his senses. He is required to know sights which he never saw, feels which he never felt, &c.; or possibly he is required to announce what is not discoverable by any person; not only what eye hath not seen, but what no eye can sce. Notions, in relation to philosophy even so vague, are found, not with the illiterate only, but with the learned; and hence the absurdities which are frequently dignified with the title of philosophy. The whole proceeds from an ignorance of the nature of questions; from not knowing what to inquire after, and what answer to be satisfied with.

I hope you recollect that in the progress of our Lectures I taught that language can effect no more than to refer us to phenomena. This position will enable us to see that every question is insignificant when it does not inquire af ter some sensible existence. If I should ask what is the shape of a taste, or the colour of a sound? Every person would exclaim against the inanity of the questions; but the only cause of their insignificance is that they inquire after no sensible phenomenon. Every interrogation which possesses a similar defect is equally trifling.

Children employ such questions more frequently than men, and more grossly. In children the practice is deem

ed an exercise of laudable curiosity by persons who know as little on the subject as children. Such questions are ably ridiculed by Sterne. "By the right use and appli cation of the auxiliary verbs, in which," says he, “a child's memory should be exercised, there is no idea can enter his brain, how barren soever, but a magazine of conceptions and conclusions may be drawn from it, thus: Did you ever see a white bear? Have I ever seen one? Might I ever have seen one? Am I ever to see one? Ought I ever to have seen one? I should see a white bear, what should I say? If I should never see one, what then? Is there no sin in a white bear? Is it better than a black one?"

Can I ever see one? If

Sterne proceeds much further than I have copied ; and we may find questions equally insignificant in grave speculations. In a work professedly philosophical®, I find the following: "Actors, when they either laugh or weep, affect spectators with the sensations which the drama expresses. But by what mechanism do the vibrations of the fibres of the actor's brain transmit themselves to that of other persons ?"

You may think the author is speaking figuratively, and that his literal intention is to direct us to the interesting phenomena which we experience at scenic representations; but nothing is further from the fact. He is soberly asking a question, to which he has duly subjoined an answer that affords proof (if further proof were necessary) that the question was not intended to refer to any sensible phenomenon; hence it differs not from the above ques

Theory of Agreeable Sensations, Chap. IX.

tions propounded by Sterne, or from another of Sterne's questions which I omitted: namely, what if the sun should wander from the zodiac?

A writer, whose name I do not recollect, says, "it is not the ignorant who should ask questions, but the wise.” The ignorant can, however, ask questions, but they hazard words which may be insignificant: thus, I may ask what the effect will be if a spark of fire should fall amid gunpowder? The question is significant, not from the collocation of the words, but because they refer to a sensible phenomenon. The same question will become insignificant the moment I refer to no phenomenon. Suppose I ask what the effect will be, if a spark of fire should fall amid the satellites of Jupiter?

When insignificant questions are propounded, it is well to ask the querist what he is inquiring after. In this way I have disconcerted many profound interrogatories. The moment a person knows not what he is inquiring after, his question is assuredly insignificant to himself.

Seeing a shadow on a wall, a person asked me if there was any thing on the wall when he was not looking at it? Certainly I can see the shadow as distinctly when your eyes are shut as when they are open. But what will become of the shadow when no man has his eyes on it? Precisely what you have named. Will the shadow be on the wall? If you enable me to know what phenomenon you are inquiring after, I can answer your question ; but if your question relates to nó discoverable existence, it means nothing.

"The little bodies which compose water, are," says Locke," so loose one from another, that the least force separates them. Nay, if we consider their perpetual

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motion, we must allow them to possess no cohesion. But let a sharp cold come, and they will unite and not be separated without great force. He that could make known the cement that makes them adhere so closely, would discover a great and yet unknown secret."

The question is, what cement makes the particles of frozen water adhere together so closely? Admit that some philosopher has discovered this cement, and for convenience we will name it A. "But," continues Locke, "this discovery aids us very little, without he can discover also the bonds which hold together the particles of the cement." Well, grant again that he discovers these bonds also, and for convenience we will name them B. Yet even this will not avail him, unless he discovers the cement which holds together the particles of these bonds; and so he must proceed in infinitum: for every cement must be composed of parts which, equally with the first, will require to be cemented.

Locke adduced the above consequences to shew, that we cannot ascertain the cause which converts water into solidity; but they evince more conclusively, that he was employing language improperly. When you inquire what bonds or cement hold together the particles of water, you can be answered so long as there are sensible phenomena to which the question refers; but the moment the question refers to no phenomenon, it becomes insignificant it is like the idlest prattle of infancy, or the wildest ravings of insanity.

The nature of questions will be better understood by investigating the nature of answers. You will recollect that words can effect no more than to refer us to phenomena; hence no answer can effect more than to refer us

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