Man is obliged to
materialize all: the sensations through the voice, the sentiments
through gesture, the ideas through speech. The means of transmission are
always material. This is why the church has sacraments, an exterior
worship, chants, ceremonies. All its institutions arise from a principle
eminently philosophical.
Speech is formed by three agents: the lips, the tongue and the
soft-palate.
It is delightful to study the special role of these agents, the reason
of their movements.
They have a series of gestures that may be perfectly understood. Thus
language resembles the hand, having also its gesture.
Chapter II.
Elements of Articulate Language.
Every language is composed of consonants and vowels. These consonants
and vowels are gestures. The value of the consonant is the gesture of
the thing expressed. But as gesture is always the expression of a moral
fact, each consonant has the intrinsic character of a movement of the
heart. It is easy to prove that the consonant is a gesture. For example,
in articulating it, the tongue rises to the palate and makes the same
movement as the arm when it would repel something.
The elements of all languages have the same meaning. The vowels
correspond directly to the moral state.
There is diversity of language because the things we wish to express
vary from difference in usage and difference of manner and climate. What
we call a shoe, bears among northern people a name indicating that it
protects the feet from the cold; among southern people it protects the
feet from the heat.
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