Continuity 95 



lated into activity by a merely physical 

 process set in action by ourselves. By a 

 timed succession of vibratory movements 

 (as in speech and music), or by a static 

 distribution of materials (as in writing, 

 painting, and sculpture), we can carry on 

 intelligent intercourse with our fellows; 

 and we get so used to these ingenious 

 and roundabout methods, that we are 

 apt to think of them and their like as not 

 only the natural but as the only possible 

 modes of communication, and to imagine 

 that anything more direct would disar- 

 range the whole fabric of science. 



It is clearly true that our bodies con- 

 stitute the normal means of manifesting 

 ourselves to each other while on the 

 planet; and that if the physiological 

 mechanism whereby we accomplish ma- 

 terial acts is injured, the conveyance 

 of our meaning and the display of our 

 personality inevitably and correspond- 

 ingly suffer. 



So conspicuously is this the case that 

 it has been possible to suppose that the 

 communicating mechanism, formed and 



