278 ELEMENTS OF SCIENCE 



the former, as is evident from that process which 

 goes on in every science as it progresses, the process 

 of inventing (as before said) fresh terms in order 

 to denote new or more complete and better defined 

 conceptions. 



The mental word is normally in excess of the spoken 

 word, as is shown by our use of metaphors. Had not 

 the intellect the power of apprehending, through the 

 senses, what is beyond the power of feeling, metaphor 

 would not exist. It exists because speech is too narrow 

 for thought, and because words are often too few to 

 convey the ideas of the mind. 



The mental word is also so rapid, it often 

 happens that speech cannot keep pace with it. That 

 such is the case as regards writing most readers have 

 probably already noted. 



But there is the closest connection between the 

 mental and the spoken word, which ordinarily ac- 

 company each other most closely, as the concavities 

 and convexities of the opposite sides of an undulating 

 line. They are nevertheless sometimes abnormally 

 separated through some physical defect, the tongue 

 repeating other words than those the mind desires to 

 give expression to. A paralysed man may possess the 

 mental word though hindered from manifesting it 

 externally by spoken words, or even by gestures. But 

 normally, as just observed, the external and internal 

 powers are inseparable. When the intellectual 

 activity exists, it seeks external expressions of 

 symbols verbal, manual, or what not by the voice 

 or by gesture-language. Some form of symbolic 

 expression is, therefore, the necessary consequence in 

 man of the possession of reason, while it is impossible 

 that true speech can for a moment exist without the 



