himself, thanks to
our having had to talk with one another. In everyday life it frequently
happens that we hit upon an idea that we were seeking and succeed in
giving it form--that is to say, we obtain the idea, drawing it forth
from the mist of dim perceptions which it represents, thanks to the
efforts which we make to present it to others. Thought is inward
language, and the inward language originates in the outward. Hence it
results that reason is social and common. A fact pregnant with
consequences, as we shall have occasion to see.

Now if there is a reality which, in so far as we have knowledge of it,
is the creation of the instinct of personal preservation and of the
senses at the service of this instinct, must there not be another
reality, not less real than the former, the creation, in so far as we
have knowledge of it, of the instinct of perpetuation, the instinct of
the species, and of the senses at the service of this instinct? The
instinct of preservation, hunger, is the foundation of the human
individual; the instinct of perpetuation, love, in its most rudimentary
and physiological form, is the foundation of human society. And just as
man knows that which he needs to know in order that he may preserve his
existence, so society, or man in so far as he is a social being, knows
that which he needs to know in order that he may perpetuate himself in
society.

There is a world, the sensible world, that is the child of hunger, and
there is another world, the ideal world, that is the child of love. And
just as there are senses employed in the service of the knowledge of the
sensible world, so there are also senses, at present for the most part
dormant, for social consciousness has scarcely awakened, employed in the
service of the knowledge of the ideal world. And why must we deny
objective reality to the creations of love, of the instinct of
perpetuation, since we allow it to the creations of hunger or the
instinct of preservation? For if it be said that the former creations
are only the creations of our imagination, without objective value, may
it not equally be said of the latter that they are only the creations of
our senses? Who can assert that there is not an invisible and intangible
world, perceived by the inward sense that lives in the service of the
instinct of perpetuation?

Human society, as a society, possesses senses which the individual, but
for his existence in society, would lack, just as the ind