Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 430

406

§ 74.

THE SPECIAL PRINCIPIUM

[Div.

ID

Only as pure idioconventional and arbitrary character. graphs did it escape from the conventional, and then only upon Writthe condition of being delineation instead of writing. photograph the ing, in the real sense of the word, tries to somatic part of our human language, in order that by seeing these photographed signs one person

may understand

what has gone on psychically in another person, Writing tries to do the same or has gone out from his lips. thing that the phonograph does, but by attaching a meaning, psychically

not to sound, but to root-forms. When we have our picture it is our own face that, Avith the aid of the light,

taken,

draws its counterfeit upon the collodion plate. If, now, it were possible for our human voice to delineate itself immediately in all its inflexions upon paper, we should have absoSince, however, thus far this is lute and organic writing. not possible, we must content ourselves with conventional writing, which is not produced by the voice itself, but by our thinking mind. It is our thinking mind which watches the sound and the inflexion of the voice in connection with the movement of the visible organs of speech, and now indicates either the voice-action itself or the content of that voice-action,

by

signs,

in

such a way that when another

person sees these signs he is able to reproduce that same inThe flexion of voice and impart to it the same content. question whether, with a sinless development, writing would

have run the same course cannot possibly be answered ; but it is evident that then also something similar would have taken its i^lace. For then also memory would have been limited in its power, and the need of communication would have originated with the sense of distance. Only for tlie realm of glory the question can arise whether, in that exalted state of the life of our spirits, and with its finer organisms, all such auxiliaries will not fall away. By itself, therefore, it cannot be said that writing is a need which has only come as a consequence of sin even though it is certain, as will appear from the last two of the four characteristics mentioned above, that the need of writing has been intensified in every ;

way by

sin.

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