Page:Addresses to the German nation.djvu/90

 the eye alone, and that, besides, if the developed conception had become clear to them, they would have had to designate it not in this way but in some other. Also their superior mental clearness would then be evident as compared, say, with that of another people which was not able to indicate the difference between the sensuous and the supersensuous by an image taken from the deliberate waking state, but had gone to dreams to find an image for another world. It would at the same time be plain that this difference was not based on the greater or smaller strength of the sense for the supersensuous in the two peoples, but solely on the difference between their sensuous clearness at the time when they sought to designate supersensuous things.

50. Thus all designation of the supersensuous is conditioned by the extent and clearness of sensuous perception in him who gives the designation. The image is clear to him and expresses to him in an entirely comprehensible way the relation of the thing conceived to the mental instrument, because this relation is explained to him by another, direct, and living relation to his sensuous instrument. The new designation which thus arises, together with all the new clearness which sensuous perception itself acquires by this extended use of the sign, is now deposited in the language; and the supersensuous perception possible in the future is now designated in accordance with its relation to the total supersensuous and sensuous perception deposited in the whole language. So it goes on without interruption, and so the immediate clearness and comprehensibility of the images is never broken off, but remains a continuous stream. Moreover, since language is not an arbitrary means of communication, but breaks forth out of the life of understanding as an immediate force of nature, a language