Page:Ralcy H. Bell - The Mystery of Words (1924).pdf/79

 sonorous waves rolling from the mouth of one person to the ear of the other. This is purely a physical phenomenon which started as a psychical and passed into a physiological, as an intermediary step. Through an inverse order the physical phenomenon starts a physiological process involving the organ of hearing and its center in the brain. This process conveys an acoustic impulse which, in turn, arouses a psychic phenomenon whether it be an image, an emotion, or a concept, according to the standards of meaning accepted by both parties to the act. In conversation these phenomenal series follow in alternate repetition. To make language possible, there must be, at least, an approximate standard of values for signs, gestures, conceptions, and feelings. This social crystallization took place before words were invented, or rather as they were invented.

This is the simplest illustration that can be made of the circuit of speech. It does not take account of many co-relative phenomena