All instruction is either about things or about signs; but things are learnt by means of signs. I now use the word "thing" in a strict sense, to signify that which is never employed as a sign of anything else: for example, wood, stone, cattle, and other things of that kind. Not, however, the wood which we read Moses cast into the bitter waters to make them sweet, [Ex. 15. 25.] nor the stone which Jacob used as a pillow, [Gen. 28. 11.] nor the ram which Abraham offered up instead of his son; [Gen. 22. 13.] for these, though they are things, are also signs of other things. There are signs of
...more
