it exists not; but with theorists the embarrassment has been fundamental.

If what I have advanced should shield you from this latent sophistry of language, your effort in listening to me has not been misemployed, for you have already made no inconsiderable progress in the philosophy of human knowledge.

IN the natural world those objects are most abundant which are of the greatest necessity to the preservation of life. So plentiful indeed are water and air, the two great requisites of vitality, that they are valueless. In the moral world, also, qualities are prevalent in proportion as they are essential to the continuation of society.

The forbearance from homicide, a forbearance which constitutes the basis of society, has, from its universality,

not even a name.

The analogy in this particular between these two great departments of creation, continues in the objects which are merely serviceable, and abandons not those which are exclusively ornamental. Thus the honesty which enables me to leave my rooms unbarred to my domestics, is as common as the bread which supplies my table.

And when we proceed to the diamond, which sparkles on the breast of wealth only, and to the massive plate which loads the sideboards of the conspicuous few: we

find them compare in rareness with the exalted integrity that spurns every indirection, and the scrupulous truth which bends to no necessity.

It is even thus in the intellectual world. The knowledge which is sufficient to direct our hands to the procurement of the necessaries of life, is discoverable in the most uneducated individual; while a knowledge either of the latent subtlety of language, or of the muscular motions necessary to produce the portraits of Stewart, are as rare as they are unessential to the common avocations of society.

Although then we may, without any of the information that I presume to deliver, remain abundantly qualified for the stations in which Providence has placed us; yet all who would correctly appreciate the various departments of speculative knowledge, can in no way so effectually sccure the object as by acquiring a deep knowledge of the properties of language.

In the last discourse which I had the honour to deliver, I showed that the same word names frequently phenomena of different senses; and that much speculative error is produced by estimating as identical, phenomena that have no identity but the name by which we designate them for instance, we think roundness the name of but one existence, while in truth it names two-a sight and a feel.

In the present discourse I shall attempt to show another essential property of language, namely: Every word is a sound, which had no signification before it was employed to name some phenomenon, and which even now has no signification apart from the phenomena to which it is applied. William and Thomas, when spoken with

reference to two men, are significant appellations; but if I apply these names to nullity, the words partake immediately of the nothingness to which I apply them.

This principle, when thus expressed, seems obvious; still, in practice, it has escaped the vigilance of the most acute, and supplied metaphysics with its most perplexing doctrines.

To detect sophistry of this description we must again resort to the constituents of our knowledge; to sights, sounds, tastes, feels, and smells. Thus, take the word weight-it names a feel. The feel is abundantly familiar. It is discoverable in a feather, in a piece of lead, and in nearly every object. The word possessed no significancy before its introduction into language, and it now possesses none apart from the feel that it designates.

Admit then that weight is the name of a feel, and observe how speciously I can employ the word after I divest it of all signification: thus, " many objects are too small to be seen with the unassisted eye; and some the most powerful microscope can render but just visible; we may therefore well believe that numerous atoms are so small that no microscope can reveal them: still cach must possess colour, shape, and weight."

Now observe, if weight names a feel, how has the word any signification when we predicate it of an atom, in which confessedly the feel cannot be experienced? What feel is that which cannot be felt? We have subtracted from the word all its significancy, and left nothing but a vacated sound. It becomes weight minus weight.

Again: take the word atom-what is it? The name of a sight and a feel. I can teach you its meaning only by

showing you, or -permitting you to feel, some very small object, of which thereafter atom will be a name. I can show that a microscope enables us to see objects where vision unassisted can discover nothing. These sights also 1 can inform you are atoms. But when I say there are atoms which cannot be seen, I divest the word of signification. We may apply the word atom to a taste, sound, or smell, and speak of an atom of taste or an atom of sound or smell; but when we use the word where no phenomenon is discoverable, it designates nothing, and is nothing but the sound of which it is constituted.

Again: colour is another attribute of the atoms that we have been considering. What is colour? The name of a sight. But in the above proposition it is used for what is admitted to be invisible: hence the word is divested of signification, and nothing remains but a vacant sound. A man that can neither be scen nor felt is not a greater nullity than an invisible colour. The defect is similar in both cases :—the words are divested of their signification.

We may learn from even this slight investigation, that words can be deprived of intelligence, and still formed into propositions which will not be obviously futile. We are vigilant to detect any open contradiction in a proposition, but we never notice the latent contradiction which arises from predicating sensible phenomena where they are confessedly undiscoverable: thus, if it should be affirmed that an object is heavy and not heavy, or visible and invisible, all persons would ridicule the affirmation : but there is no essential difference between even such propositions and those which speak of a weight that cannot be felt, and of a colour that cannot be seen.