Chapter 4: On the Spoken Word and the Innate Word and on Ideas—On the Spoken Word

A distinctive property of man is the spoken word; through it he externalizes his feelings and thoughts and develops all his spiritual powers, which he draws out from the potential state and places into actuality; it lays the foundation of his progress, development and advancement, and reaches the perfection revealing him. The spoken word, the first uttered from the lips of man inscribed with deep writing the first chapter of the history of his life on earth, and was the first impulse forward and the abandonment of the point of his standing, it was the unsealing of the scroll, in which was written the earthly path of man.

The spoken word is an instrument of the soul by which it manifests itself to the world; it is the sensible image of the soul, or its ideal body. The development of the word is the development of the powers of the soul, and the form of the word is the form of the degree of its perfection, for such is the word as the intellect; such the counsels, such also the utterances; in order for the mouth to speak, the intellect must first work; when the intellect is idle the mouth remains mute; therefore in order for the tongue to move toward articulate voice, the soul, or the intellect, must first wish to express its thoughts; in order for water to flow there must first exist a spring gushing forth waters; such a spring is the rational soul, through its intellect and its powers expressing the manifold streams of the word. The first word expressed by the soul as soon as man opened his eyes and gazed upon the nature around him, and perceived his world.

Since sensations accompany life, the first word is recorded from the first perception; Holy Scripture, the most ancient of all books of the world, and if not considered by those denying divine revelation as a book written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, ought to be considered as the most philosophical book of the ancient world; it says that God, after having formed man, called upon him to give names to the animals; And God formed still from the earth all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the sky, and brought them to Adam, to see and to call them; and all which Adam called it a living soul, that is its name. (Gen. 2:19) This most ancient conviction of humanity concerning the language of man is a sufficient argument against those denying reason to the rational soul of man, and considering the spoken word, not as a means of the rational soul inseparable, but as a cause of it; the presentation of the animals and the calling of man through his formation to see and call names to all the animals, what else expresses than the impulse of the rational soul to universalize, judge and reason; How would he give names, if not the soul in all its strength understood the differences distinguishing the animals and the characters of the animal; Those not accepting the revealed truth agree in all things toward right reason, and reason captivated ought to respect the spirit of the most ancient period and acknowledge its authority. If man did not have a rational soul, he would lack also the spoken word, nor would he have the tongue and the phonetic organs so useful for the word; animals unfit for this testify to the lack of the innate word. The wisdom of God made all things in wisdom; the stasis of animals and the lack of the word are witness of their irrationality; what chasm opens between man and animal through the spoken word! What then is the distinction.

The Cuvier, a most wise man, speaking of the language of man says: “the zonked one possesses the faculty of language, which is the natural consequence of the rational, has in the body the phonetic organs, in which it happens automatically, that in the motion of the nerves following irritation from external impressions it becomes. Man has in deliberation the logical intellect, which he follows in the development of language. This is indeed an invention, but a gift of nature. The relation of the spiritual faculty of language presupposes from before the intellect connected and from the beginning joined together and accordingly shaping them. The spiritual therefore of language power, and nature of it; the law of its development is of God’s creation. What we as a gift of nature called, must be viewed only as a work of conscious wisdom, and not as ever it will be of chance fortune. But this gift is also at the same time a task. The idea of language is a divine product, but the actualization and development of this is the proper work of man.”

That the word distinguishes man from the animal more than his bodily character, the great scientist says: “if one were to judge guided only by form, the ape could be considered as a variety of man. The Creator did not wish to form the body of man an absolutely different prototype from the animal; but he embraced the form of him and of the other animals in one general design. To the form of the ape but having given it his divine breath, he breathed into man; if he had given the same breath not to the ape, but to the most imperfect of the animals, that species would have proved as capable as man; governed by the spirit would have exceeded the others, would have thought, would have spoken. Whatsoever similarity may therefore exist between the Hottentot and the ape, the partition dividing them is infinite; for man bears within the rational, outside is adorned by the spoken word.”

Therefore the spoken word is a witness of the innate word of the rational soul, whose powers we shall examine, by comparing the energies of the animals, so that more clearly it may be shown the chasm which stands separating man from the animal.