Page:Ralcy H. Bell - The Mystery of Words (1924).pdf/109

 Another significance of sign in this respect becomes apparent at a glance. If the soul of a word is its acoustic image, as it seems to be; if it is the one element or trait which all the others make possible through their synthetic action—the one element which, if lacking, would render the others inchoate—then the term sign is more logical, even, than it appears to be on the surface. This is quite apart, of course, from its arbitrary character as it relates to different tongues considered as conventions for purposes of comparison, etc.

For the moment then let us consider words as signs. The sign first of all is based on convention, custom, habit. Its primitive value in itself was lost during the period when pre-historic man began to hunt in packs. As he became communal the rules governing his expressional signs began to crystallize, and so the signs became relatively fixed and arbitrary. Language being the most widespread and complex of all the systems of