ss desire,
pleasure, etc.; not until much later imitated sounds, and often the
imperfect imitation of the voices of animals, of inorganic noises, and
of spoken words. The mutilation of his words makes it seem as if the
child were already inventing new designations which are soon
forgotten; and as the child, like the lunatic, uses familiar words in
a new sense after he has begun to learn to talk, his style of
expression gets an original character, that of "baby-talk." Here it is
characteristic that the feelings and ideas do not now first _arise_,
though they are now first articulately expressed; but they were in
part present long since and did not become articulate, but were
expressed by means of looks and gestures. In the adult ideas generate
new words, and the formation of new words does not cease so long as
thinking continues; but in the child without speech new feelings and
new ideas generate at first only new cries and movements of the
muscles of the face and limbs, and, the further we look back into
child-development proper, the greater do we find the number of the
conditions expressed by one and the same cry. The organism as yet has
too few means at its disposal. In many cases of aphasia every mental
state is expressed by one and the same word (often a word without
meaning). Upon closer examination it is found, however, that for the
orator also, who is complete master of speech, all the resources of
language are insufficient. No one, e. g., can name all the colors that
may be perceived, or describe pain, or describe even a cloud, so that
several hearers gain the same idea of its form that the speaker has.
The words come short, but the idea is clear. If words sufficed to
express clearly clear conceptions, then the greater part of our
philosophical and theological literature would not exist. This
literature has its basis essentially in the inevitable fact that
different persons do not associate the same concept with the same
word, and so one word is used to indicate different concepts (as is
the case with the child). If a concept is exceptionally difficult--i. e.,
exceptionally hard to express clearly in words--then it is wont to
receive many names, e. g., "die," and the confusion and strife are
increased; but words alone render it possible to form and to make
clear concepts of a higher sort. They favor the formation of new
ideas, and without them the intellect in man remains in a lower stage
of development just bec