Page:Ralcy H. Bell - The Mystery of Words (1924).pdf/81

 Thus words do not exist in sound only, since the sound merely is an instrument of the idea; neither can a word exist fully in its written or printed form, for the form is a symbol. It can not exist as a word merely in physiologic function, because the physiologic function must pass into a psychologic process before the mind can interpret the final phenomenon as a word.

Words, therefore, are one of the many complex elements of language. Their broader relations and subtler significances may be perceived only through various avenues of approach, as we shall see presently. It also will be clear to us that words have two notable phases: one that reflects the individual, as it were, and one that reflects society,—neither phase of this aspect of the phenomenon can stand without the other.

Besides, words have time-functions that affect them each instant with the consciousness of duration. They are influenced by the three tenses: conception of time present, past,