I found a little beetle, so that Beetle was his name,

And I called him Alexander and he answered just the same.

I put him in a match-box, and I kept him all the day …

And Nanny let my beetle out –

… And Beetle ran away.

We went to all the places which a beetle might be near,

And we made the sort of noises which a beetle likes to hear,

And I saw a kind of something …

It was Alexander Beetle I'm as certain as can be

And he had a sort of look as if he thought it must be ME.

Now someone tells me that he knows what pain is only from his own case! – Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a “beetle.” No one can look into anyone else's box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. – Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing. – But suppose the word “beetle” had a use in these people's language? – If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty. – No, one can “divide through” by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is. […]