Queries and quaestiones: Edward Lhwyd between Natural History and Natural Philosophy.

Abstract

This article reads the antiquary and Fellow of the Royal Society Edward Lhwyd's works with attention to the different forms of questioning which he associated with various forms of natural enquiry. It argues that Lhwyd associated two forms of question - the 'Query' and the quaestio - with different styles of information: in Lhwyd's view, 'Queries' asked for precise, observed points of fact; quaestiones were discursive, argumentative prompts for thought not strictly dependent on experiment or observations, and connected with the oldest forms of university education and examination. Building on Richard Yeo's work, the article argues that Lhwyd divided his own preoccupations along these lines: for his lexicographical and local-historical work, he produced a voluminous set of 'Parochial Queries'; by contrast, when he addressed the hotly controverted and apparently insoluble question of the Earth's origin and the deposition of fossils, he referred to the matter persistently as a quaestio. The article further shows the possible influences on Lhwyd in making this latter move: the influence of John Ray's Three Physico-Theological Discourses; Lhwyd's personal animus against Robert Plot; and Lhwyd's more generally unorthodox academic credentials all contributed, I argue, to his use of the much-disputed quaestio.