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83. A Mock Examination[256]
BY FRANCIS HOPKINSON (1784)
METAPHYSICS
PROFESSOR. WHAT is a salt-box ?
STUDENT. It is a box made to contain salt.
PROF. How is it divided ?
STU. Into a salt-box, and a box of salt.
PROF. Very well ! show the distinction.
STU. A salt-box may be where there is no salt; but salt is absolutely necessary to the existence of a box of salt.
PROF. Are not salt-boxes otherwise divided ?
STU. Yes: by a partition.
PROF. What is the use of this partition ?
STU. TO separate the coarse salt from the fine.
PROF. HOW ? -think a little.
STU. TO separate the fine salt from the coarse.
PROF To be sure: it is to separate the fine from the coarse: but are not salt-boxes yet otherwise distinguished ?
STU. Yes: into possible, probable, and positive.
PROF. Define these several kinds of salt-boxes.
STU. A possible salt-box is a salt-box yet unsold in the hands of the joiner.
PROF. Why so ?
STU. Because it hath never yet become a salt-box in fact, having never had any salt in it; and it may possibly be applied to some other use.
PROF. Very true: for a salt-box which never had, hath not now, and perhaps never may have, any salt in it, can only be termed a possible salt-box. What is a probable salt-box?
STU. It is a salt-box in the hand of one going to a shop to buy salt, and who hath six-pence in his pocket to pay the grocer: and a positive salt-box is one which hath actually got salt in it.
PROF. Very good: but is there no instance of a positive salt-box which hath no salt in it ?
STU. I know of none.
PROF. Yes: there is one mentioned by some author: it is where a box hath by long use been so impregnated with salt, that although all the salt hath been long since emptied out, it may yet be called a salt-box, with the same propriety that we say a salt herring, salt beef, &c.
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