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Max

Picard

LANGUAGE

UNIVERSITY
OF FLORIDA

LIBRARIES

^
\;iay

COLLEGE LIBRARY

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in

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2011 with funding from

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http://www.archive.org/details/manlanguageOOpica

MAN and
LANGUAGE
by

Max

Picard

Translated by

STANLEY GODMAN

A GATEWAY EDITION
HENRY REGNERY COMPANY

CHICAGO

Man and Language was translated

by Stanley Godman from Der Mensch
und das Wort, published by Eugen
Rentsch Verlag, Erlenbach-Ziirich,
Switzerland.

Copyright 1963 by Henry Regnery

Company, Chicago, Illinois.

Manufactured in the United

States

of America.

Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 63-14898

CONTENTS

The Gift of Language

The Things That Are Given
The Origin of Language

to

Man

Language and Sound

12

18

24

Language and Light

31

Language and the World of Pure Being

36

The Meaning

41

of

Language

Language and Truth

50

Language and Decision

Language

as a Totality in

55

Man

The Structure of Language

The Multiplicity of Languages
High German and Dialect
The Destruction of Language
Words and Objects
Language and Action
Time and Space in Language

Language and the

Human Form

65
72
82

85

88
92
106
112

116

Language and the Voice

122

Language and Pictures

Language and Poetry

137

143

Letter

The

Pre-given

World

of Poetry

127

146

THE GIFT OF LANGUAGE

Everything that belongs

man's basic structure has

to

been given Jo him in advance;

it

has

all

been ready

him from the very beginning, before he ever takes

and uses it. Language is one of the things which is
given to him in advance. "Language," writes Wilhelm von Humboldt, "must, in accordance with my
for

deepest conviction, be considered part of the very con-

man. In order

stitution of

to truly

understand one

single word, not as a merely physical stimulant but

as

an articulated sound describing a concept, language

must

man

reside in

whole and

as a

as a coherent

structure."

Language

given to man.

is

Without

gins to speak.

it

It exists

before

man beMan

he could not speak.

him

speaks in the language which has been given to

before he

actually

experience and

it

speaks.
is

The

outside

gift

is

man, yet

it

beyond

all

exists

for

man. It is something to which man comes and from

which he parts again. The gift is a numinosum: it
simultaneously
establishes his
is

repels

man and

world between

based on the

is

and

him.

Man

fro.

Time

movement towards and away from

the things that are given to

Language

attracts

this to

given to

man
1

man.
in advance, but the mira-

Man and Language

it

and

able to speak as he wills. This unity of activity

and

he

cle is that

nevertheless free in relation to

is

of freedom

passivity,

and compulsion

belongs to a sphere above the

of opposites

is

human

language,

in

This unity

level.

in itself a proof of the divine origin

of language.

Without the pre-given

man

guage
he

is

is

silence

when
him
human

always ready to be used by man, and

not actually speaking,

in silence.

The

it

is

up

stored

assurance and the calm in

for

comes from the certainty that language

ways waiting, ready

If

language, every hu-

gift of

being would speak a different language. Lan.-

to be used

whenever

language had not been given to him,

forever have to be creating the basis

is

al-

man wills.
man would

on which words

could be spoken. Language would be a continual ex-

periment rather than an absolute certainty.

It

has surprised

me

that a disciple of Sartre,

Merleau-Ponty, recognizes that language

a

gift.

"Language," he

learns to speak.
self

that

is

teaches

itself

in gestures

man

and

the miracle of language."

a child expresses
like

says, "exists in

Language

is

Maurice

inevitably

before he

interprets

To

it-

begin with,

and sounds,

just

an animal. Quite suddenly, however, a few words

arrive

from a

different

level.

These words are no

longer isolated sounds referring to single objects, they

are an intimation of the gift of language as a whole.

"Children would never learn to speak

already possess language." *
is

if

they did not

The language

of children

nearer to the original gift of language than the

language of adults. Children are encompassed by the

* Jean Paul, Hesperus.

The

Gift of

Language

language; so densely surrounded by

gift of

it

that

words themselves come through very slowly. The

slowness of a child's speech

he

is

to

an

is

not due to the fact that

learning to speak, but rather that speech belongs

entirely different world.

The

deaf mute, although he has no power of speech,

nevertheless shares in the gift of language and, inde-

pendently of the actual experience of speech, he

form concepts because he partakes of the

able to
that

is

given to

is

gift

men.

all

II

Because language

is

a gift, there

is

more than just

is more than

the words in a sentence, and a sentence

mere sum of the individual words^ There is also

more in it than the speaker himself is aware of as he
speaks the first words that make up the sentence.
Conversation is able to^ give one another more than
the

the participaiitrTntend to give, since language creates

something that
use

is

beyond the capacity of those

who

it.

"Does empirical language contain a

latent language

of higher potency?," asks Merleau-Ponty.

potency

is

what

I call

The

higher

the pre-givenness of language.

it is not created by man, contains

more than the speaker himself knows and more than
he can use. "When I speak," writes Franz von Baader,
"I set in motion a power which I am not myself."
Language raises man up beyond the merely human

Language, because

level.

The

gift

of language hovers over

bright, distant cloud

and man's

us like a

eternal yearning

is

Man and Language

the answer to the light of this hovering, beckoning,

cloud.

Language contains more than man can use; therelanguage has a life of its own. Language has not

fore,

been created for merely

simply "a

total

utilitarian

of everything our predecessors

it.

purposes,

nothing;

its

own

not

is

Mauthner has

de-

If

language were used only for practical

it

would soon be worn out and shrink

it

would sink and absorb

But the

things.

It

have experienced, a

collection of old material," as F.

fined

ends.

schematic description in sound-symbols

sustains

fact that
it

it

all

to

other sinking
J

has an original being of

above the

level of the useful

and

informative. If language were nothing but an instru-

ment for the conveying of useful information, silence

would be sheer emptiness. Since, however, language
is more than this, silence leads to man's beginning
or his end.

The

It

leads to expectation.

fact that

language comes from a sphere above

the world of information and utility gives

it

depth.

Just as the figures in medieval pictures are related to

the world of eternity by the gold background, so words

are related to the eternal world by the divinely given

being of language.
that

memory

The permanence and

gives to language are also

continuity

due

to

its

divine origin.

The dynamic

of thought

could not withstand

it

if

is
it

so great that language

were not based on an

were man-created, it
would be destroyed by the explosive power of thought.
Man is more sustained by language than language is

eternal foundation. If language

The
sustained by

man. There

man

language than

The

Gift of

Language

more sustaining power

is

in

could supply on Eis own.

human mind comes from an

unrest in the

awareness of the original world of language which

watches over

human

The

it.

thinking

effort to

improve the quality of

a response to this ever-watching,

is

ever-guiding world. Unfinished thoughts venture out

human

world or into

into the silence of this

language;

they are protected by the given world of language.

They do not need

Because of

be perfect from the

to

human

side.

relationship to the eternal world, lan-

its

guage has a more than merely human power.

O
O
O

world invisible, we view thee,

world intangible, we touch thee,
world unknowable, we know thee,

we

Inapprehensible,

clutch thee.*

Ill

The

and

eternal

objective quality in language

the reflection of the divine

was created and which

"The

Word

is

still

is

by which the world

actively

Word which

at

work

in

and

sus-

tains the world," writes Baader, "still hovers in

our

language.

hearts

The

living

and on our
original

to be realized

created

lips."

and

eternal being of language seeks

by man;

it is

bonum diffusivum sui,

human language

the goodness that strives to enter into

and

to

expand within

it.

Without the aid of music the

realization of the eternal language

would perhaps be

too violent, like a sudden eruption.

The

* Francis

eternal

Thompson, "The Kingdom of God."

world

Man and Language

6
is

nowhere

so evident as in language, for Christ

him-

Word by whose self-giving the world was

made. Man is nowhere so near to the eternity of God
the

self is

as in language.

The

eternal being of language

manently transcendent.

It is

guage that

make

Often

it

it is

able to

seems

the glory of

im-

is

human

lan-

the inaudible audible.

though, through the radiance of

as

beauty, language were trying to return to the eternal

world from which

ever, that

it

comes. Sometimes

absorb; one feels that

which

it

will only

come

it

to

into being in the future.

be walking in

sometimes seems

its

sleep.

we

Some-

into the

itself

Then

again,

nearly waste away. "I

thoughts flashing through the mind," writes

Augustine, "whilst the language of the

and heavy. As language

still

mouth

heavily on

rolls

thought has already retired to

it

world of language

as if the eternal

has forsaken us, and then

feel

can

it

contains words and insights

times language seems to have dreamed

future,

seems, how-

language has been given more than

St.

is

slow

its

way,

solitary dwelling."

its

Because language comes from an eternal world,

man

is

able

to

reach out beyond himself through

language. But this

moment man

is

the beginning of the Fall.

reaches the eternal world he

but the very next

moment he

fears

he

is

The

enchanted,

may

fall

from

the height he has attained. Rising and falling are both

together in every
is

word

of

human

language. Language

the place where rising and falling occur without

ceasing; the disturbance of this constant

inherent in language.

The

movement

is

poet outsings the disturb-

ance; rising and falling are dissolved in his song.

Joy and misery exist in

human

words, but there

is

The

Language

middle position where language spreads out

also the
like

Gift of

water in a river without banks, and

unaware of the

man

is still

and original world of

eternal

lan-

guage.

IV

The world
and

original

in

which language has

and within

eternal

verse with one another.

being

its

we

world

this

is

con-

This world enables us to

communicate with one another. Today,

man

has

turned his back on the eternal world and words have

difficulty in

They

reaching other persons.

purposes with one another. "Thinking

oneself"; according to Jakob

person

is

both

speaking to

"every thinking

and second person." The

first

being of language

Grimm,

are at cross-

is

eternal

the whole basis of dialogue, of

is

conversation with other persons.

It is

true that differ-

ent people understand words in different ways. "Lan-

guage

is

a cloud

which everyone

sees as a different

shape," wrote Jean Paul. This cloud

language and there

is

is

person can "see." Because the "cloud"

is

not enough room for

it

is

it

than one

eternal, there

in the imagination of a

person. Nevertheless, one person can under-

single

stand another; the differences between

ciled

the eternal in

always more to

by that which

is

mutual understanding

them

eternal in language.
is

created. "It

is

are recon-

basis of

so diflScult to

demonstrate the different meanings and the imperfections of

is,

in

words in words alone," said Locke

words that are not

The

eternal in language

encounters. It was to

that

related to the eternal world.

is

the basis of

make human

all

human

love possible that

Man and Language

came down into human language. Through

human subjectivity is related to the eternal

the eternal

language

and

objective vjoAd. In the light of this w^orld that

comes

to

man through language,

men from one another

that divide

cance.^The differences continue to

the differences

all

fade into insigniiiexist,

The differences cease to

of human relationships.

characteristic

human

In the world of today in which the

has lost

which

man

its

it

but they lose

be the primary

their violence.

relationship with the eternal

formerly received definition and identity,

has lost the basis from which he can

men and

wards to other
with a

new

basis

using one part of

The

lost.

To

things.

move

out-

provide himself

he divides his personality into two,

it

as a substitute for the basis

schizophrenia of our age

from the

flight

subject

world from

is

he has

related to the

eternal world.

Language has

beyond utility
makes man truly
human since man begins where mere necessity ceases,
where mere necessity is drowned by an eternal world.

and

necessity,

The whole

its

and

true life in a world

it

this

is

structure of

man

that

conditioned by this

is

overflowing of the eternal, drowning the world of

mere

utility

and

necessity.

That

is

why Esperanto and

the so-called Basic languages are unworthy of

These

artificial

languages

are

barely

man.

sufficient

for

mutual understanding; they are concerned with the

human

life to

from the

human

They reduce
They represent a flight
world beyond necessity. They make things

bare necessities of

intercourse.

bare necessities.

The
as bare

and

Gift of

sterile as

Language

They are
come
language. They have

they are themselves.

lacking in creative power, for their v^ords do not

from the

eternal w^orld of true

no breadth, no room

for silence,

may

is

this

not notice

he

it,

and although

man

oppressed and depressed by

fundamental weakness. Such languages can lead

to nervous tension
for they reduce

{Ver\rampfungen) and psychoses,

man

to

an explicable machine. In

languages based on pure expedience there

for the inexplicable in

man. The

is

no place

languages

artificial

more than man has put into them himand inorganic, lacking in
real vitality. They are no more related to the eternal
world than is a motor car, and they are just as easy

contain no
self.

They

are mechanical

to take apart.

There

is

nothing behind them; they are

mere sound. All space and

crushed out of these

all

time seem to have been

artificial

languages. Such lan-

guages are languages only for the moment. Divorced

from the

eternal being of true language,

man

loses

reverence for language; he lords and controls

all

and reduces
only the

it

to the level of

artificial

rudimentary

signals.

languages, however, lack

all

it

Not
rela-

tionship with the eternal today; language in general

has

become divorced from the Wholeness of the

^.

original language.

Leibnitz planned to establish a universal language;

he thought that

all

concepts could be represented by

a system of symbols just as the whole world of mathe-

matics

is

represented by a system of numbers. But,

like all artificial languages, such a universal

would be barren;

it

would not

Yet, this lingua universalis

language

create anything

new.

and Descartes' word-ma-

Man and Language

10

chine derived from the rich world of the baroque.

They were one

of

many whimsical

its

ornaments.

they are languages of a world reduced to mere

probably impossible to

It is

The

languages of today come from our poverty;

artificial

languages.

artificial

It is

utility.

the truth in these

tell

only possible to

make mere

statements in them. Truth exceeds mere statement:

is

related to

something more than

and truth

stated,

it

capable of being

is

ceases to be truth without this re-

lationship.

VI
Language
mere

in the

subjectivity.

modern world

Man

determined by

is

language;

experiences

for-

merly language experienced man. Language spoke

to man and that was why man's ability to make
own free use of language was significant.

Language has ceased

eternal

own

being.

When

sive.

It

pushes
tected

had

its

forfeits the rich fullness

it

no longer comes downward from above; it

upward from below. Language is unprotoday;

everything.

it

full

is

It is like

open to and absorbs

stance into
retained.

looked

from the

ever

it

background and becomes hard and aggres-

true

its

life

its

language ceases to be related to

the eternal world of Being,

of

draw

to

world which existed before

his

at

the
all

of

cracks

human

and pervious

face

which today

is

experience, lacking the sub-

which may sink that which

Formerly language looked

language.

to

at

Today he merely

In language which

is

still

world of Being there

is

a healing

related

is

not to be

man and man

squints at
to the

power

it.

eternal

for

man,

The
but today

it

Gift of

seems that

it is

Language
language

itself

11
that needs

healing.

Immortals mortal, mortals immortal;

living they live the death of them, in death
they die the life of them.*

Language

itself

seems to be speaking in these

lines.

Heraclitus seems to have caught language at the very

moment

it

w^as conversing v^^ith the eternal Being.

lines contain a healing

actual content.
* Heraclitus, Fr. 62.

power over and above

The
their

THE THINGS THAT ARE GIVEN TO MAN

Everything that pertains

man

the basic structure of

to

him

has been given to

in advance;

it

For

man

own

today, only his

has validity.

He

ready

is

from the very beginning before ever he uses

it.

subjective experience

cannot believe that anything outside

himself, anterior to himself, has validity. Far

from

accepting things which have been given to him,

man

now

rids himself of things

sessed

even before he has pos-

them. Faith belongs to the things that are

given to men.

Man

believes

with the

belief

with which

he has been believed. But today everyone has

to ac-

moment since the world of

faith is lacking in which man cannot help but believe
with everyone else. Someone may say that it is man's
glory to achieve faith in every new moment; it is
quire faith

anew

in every

man's glory because

in this way,

on

his

it is

more

own, than

along with everyone

else.

not necessarily right, and

difficult to

to

have

But what
it

is

is

it

achieve faith

given to

more

him

difficult is

not right in this case

human structure to be
constandy making an effort. If man were always
because

it

is

contrary to the

awake, constant

man's

and

life

rest

is

effort

would be natural

to

him. But

not entirely and solely conscious; sleep

and dreams

also

have
12

their vital part to play.

The Things That Are Given

"The

sleepers also

tribute

The

what

is

work," wrote Heraclitus, "and con-

knowledge

capacity for

also given to

is

am. But Franz von Baader

sum

therefore

man

think,

replied: Cogitor

sum I am thought of by God,

and am. The way in which a thought

a Deo, ergo cogito et

think

man which

thought points to something beyond

is

13

happening in the universe."

in advance. Descartes said Cogito, ergo

therefore

Man

to

man

mind
would not move on so many different tracks. Everything would be simpler, quicker, less circuitous, but
there would only be a human truth, as though there
shares in him.

Determined by

were no other outside and beyond

himself, the

it.

Perhaps the abstract, general concept

reach out beyond the individual

to

world which surpasses

world does not

the general.

strive

all

individuals.

is

an attempt
the

to

But the

eternal

eternal

outwards from the individual to

general from the very beginning and

It is

moves downward

to the individual.

There

is

a pre-

given unity between men. Understanding and agree-

ment

are possible because

man

speaks into this unity.

In their understanding of one another

men

seek to

reach that unity that exists from the beginning,

ready to be found by man.

world than
original

is

man
and

Man would

own

nature

all

unity exists in the

can tear asunder, for the

eternal.

the dynamics of his

greater uniting

More

if

total unity

be blown up by
there were not a

and reconciling force within him than

he can break.

One human being could never forgive another if

men had not already been embraced by the great

all

forgiveness that

is

at the heart of the eternal Being.

Man and Language

14

"Man

is

more protected than he knows. There is a

which encompasses

great eternal spirit of forgiveness

How many terrible things pass

human mind and spirit from six o'clock
at the morning when he wakes up, to ten o'clock at
night when he goes to sleep. Man is incapable of doing
human

all

deeds.

through the

the terrible things that occur to him; he

all

against

know."

himself.
*

We

more

are

is

protected

than

protected

man

Since the Fall, evil has also been given to

advance. In

all

individual evil there

the evil done since the Fall.

all

own

evil all the evil

ever, evil deeds

inal Sin that

on

find evil

is

his

seem no longer
as if

it

had never existed

is

Death

is

before.

because that was his

in the world, the Original Sin

man. Today when a man

have created

Today, how-

from the Orig-

pre-given to man. Everyone seems to

own,

share of the evil that

of

emulates in his

Fall.

to arise

man was wicked

Formerly, a

in

a reflection of

is

Man

done since the

we

is

wicked he seems

to

evil himself.

human

a given fact of

merely die "his

own

life.

Man

does not

own
men from

death"; together with his

death he dies the death that

is

given to

all

the beginning. If death were not an eternal

ing would inevitably be

much more

violent;

gift,
it

dy-

would

be like a sudden attack on the individual, unrelated

to

anything given, anything expected. The "Father"

is

a gift to man, in the form of the God-Father, and

it is

from

quality

this gift that all

and

human

their strength.

family comes from the Father

*

Max

Picard,

fathers derive their

Their power

who

is

The World Destroyed and

above

to create a
all

fathers.

Indestructible.

The Things That Are Given

The

Man

to

15

motherly, the caring and cherishing mother,

man. There

a gift to

than can exist in

is

more motherUness

in the

is

world

mothers, for they draw their

all

motherliness from this eternal source.

Man

himself

is

man. There

a gift to

is

more of the

man than he is able to realize. This extra

substance in man is pre-given and surrounded by the
numinous. This numinous quality in man inspires
substance of

him with both

fear

and strange,

alien

The

He was

of love

that

it

At one moment

it

seems

loves

is

given to

him

in

loved before he himself loved. But

"before" and "after"

is

joy.

next utterly right and friendly.

which man

love with

advance.

and

at the

is

all

one in

love.

The paradox

seems to have existed before any

including love, was

made

to

man

at all.

"Love

is

gift,

the

true ontological proof of the existence of an object

outside our minds," according to

bach. There
as

love

is

itself,

Anselm von Feuer-

only one other phenomenon, objective

able to supply this ontological proof:

language.

When
The

the words "I love you" are spoken, the love

Thou

of the

subject

word

"love."

all at

once.

as well as the love of the I

I

and the

object

The word

is

Thou

is

expressed.

are together in the

subject, object

and predicate

II

In love a person moves to an other person not from

himself but from a higher level, the level of that

which

is

pre-given, as father, mother, lover, forgiver.

Constant contact with the objective pre-given world of

Man and Language

16

love provides a foundation for continuity

and

and

for faith

love.

"All these objective things

have a meaning of

abiding validity, that of an objective validity v^^hich extends beyond the present cognitive subjectivity and

They have an

acts.

which

objective continuity

able to everyone u^hether they are aware of

it

its

is avail-

or not." *

III

Something
in

inexplicable, eternally unexpressed, exists

man which

given. It

is

corresponds to the things that are pre-

wrapped

things belong

more

The

in silence.

Logos can explain belong

to

man;

to

God

than to man, but

allowed to share in them. (That

stranger to himself today.
to

him: the world of

inexplicable.)

Man

He

lacks

man

why man

is

what

is

is

really belongs

which he can meet the

silence in

often stands before himself as be-

an unintelligible being.

fore

things that the

the inexplicable

He

encounters within

himself a zone beyond the realm of language, pointing

to a future in

man and
on

left

which what

is

still

inexplicable

and

be revealed. All the inexplicable things in

silent will

objects belong together

their

own

and when they are

they seem to speak to one another.

Paul, the apostle, said that he had heard "unspeakable

words which

it is

not lawful for a

man

to utter."

These words existed before human language and hu-

man

silence, they are the

unspeakable words of the

They correspond to the unfathomable which

mark of the Creator in man. This divine ele-

Creator.
is

the

ment
*

in

man

Edmund

responds to

Husserl,

all

the things that are un-

Formal and Transcendent Logic.


The Things That Are Given

Man

to

17

moment of response man is set

own existence which is determined
For a moment language is annulled and

speakable and in the

back behind his

by the Logos.

man

transported to a place which was before lan-

is

guage and before the

What

is

silence of language.

hopeless about rationalism

that

is

it

has no

knowledge or experience of the things that are unspeakable and therefore no knowledge or sense of
things that have yet to be revealed in the future.

IV
All creatures and the whole of nature aspires to be

near

man

active.

whom

in

The

the eternal, pre-given world

on the horizon

sea extends

ning of the sky;

it

denly, however,

a ship with a

almost ceases to be the

across the distant surface

from the
the

and the

far distance to be

is

to the begin-

man

sea.

passes

Sud-

quietly

sea seems to return

where the ship

is,

with

and the

trees

man.

In a storm the forest

is

burst open

seem no more than the topmost edge of an abyss

then two

human

together and

beings go through the forest, talking

it is

to their voices in a

as

though the

new

quietness.

were listening

forest

The

forest

is

calmed

by the presence and sound of men.

When man

has lost his relationship to the eternal

world Nature seeks to leave him. The mountains are

then merely a dark wall and the sea
face covering up an abyss.

space in

which they

The

fly is like

birds

is

fly

only the sur-

over

it

but the

the reflected image of

the abyss underneath them. Suddenly they cry and

is

as

though they were buffeting against

its

walls.

it

THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE

In the Old Testament

God

spoke to

man

directly.

Man

was not the speaker but the one spoken

to.

itself

spoke; the words were engraved in the

air.

God with

breathed in the words of

the

air.

Space

Men

Words

were laws. Obeying the laws was man's response.

Man

obeyed the laws; thus he had language.

Later on,

man abandoned

abandoned him.

from the law, a dark

and threatens

Language

Human

the law and language

dark, menacing light

light

fills

still

comes

out the hollowed space

to invade us.

is

empty because God no longer speaks.

language hovers around

saken by God. True time

is

to be

this

emptiness for-

measured from the

moment when God

spoke. Language has had a history

moment. Language is still alive today bewas once the vehicle of holy things.

since that

cause

it

When

the Logos

all

words within

if

newly created.

things were

still

came to man it gathered together

and they came again to man, as
Fear departed. When words and

itself

a unity,

when words did not describe

named themselves

things but were things, and things

simply by existing, there was no problem of language.

Words were absorbed

in things

each was cherished by the other.

18

and things in words,

When

the unity

was

The Origin

of

Language

19

broken, the breach appeared with the violence of a

was broken simultaneously.

novelty; everything else

Everything

else

was broken in advance. Words were

broken away from the things they named; they were

isolated

from things and had

first to set

out to find

things again.

Because of the break between words and things,

space was divided too, and

man

faced a

new

frontier.

And

because time was involved in the break, death

came
came

to

its

man. But

history came, too,

a part of history;

own and became

"Language

is

it

Other

to exist."

gan, however, with the

were rent

apart.

The problem

ruption of the primary

in

."

wrote Jean

exist, it is

necessary

The problem of language beFall, when words and things

of the Other, too, has

only existed since the Fall, that

man

be-

history of

subject to the process of change.

existence for others

Paul Sartre, "before language can

for the

and language

had henceforth a

is,

only since the dis-

communion between man and

which there was no/difference between

and

Thou.
Perhaps there was a danger in the paradisian unity
of words and things.

from

Man was

not sufficiently distinct

things; he understood things

He

and animals.

understood their- language but he was in danger of

mingling

all

too easily with animals and things.

It

was

language, the break between words and things, that

first set

Yet

him

it is

clearly apart

possible,

from animals and

things.

even today, to wholly embrace a

word and restore the unity between the

word and the thing. Since the Fall, however, man has
had to earn his language as well as his bread by the
thing with a

Man and Language

20

sweat of his brow.

When

he succeeds in re-establishing

the lost unity between words and things, he

is lifted

out of the history initiated by the Fall; isolated, out-

and

side time

space, in the isolation of the miraculous

paradisian Beginning.

sometimes seems

It

though things might swal-

as

low up language and bring

an end. There

to

it

is

man a fear lest language may be taken away

from things. He is afraid of being robbed of language

present in

and

so he talks constantly, not trusting himself to be

silent.

He

has been uneasy and insecure ever since the

Fall.

Sometimes

it

seems, too, as though a thing had

crushed under foot rather than merely swallowed the

word
word

that describes

attached to

it;

thing becomes a menace.

to

have shattered

though

as

Without

it.

An

words

all

it

its

had never had

attendant word, a

African idol often seems

in order to lord

it

over

man.
In some pieces of sculpture, for example, the ivory
figures of the 9th

sculpture,

and 10th centuries and Romanesque

words seem

to

have been swallowed up by

the figures, absorbed by them, though not entirely

buried.

The

underneath

There

surface of the face covers the language

as

though with a cloak of

also exist objects

which

silence.

are not accessible to

words, for example, the colossal walls of Etruscan

cities

and those of Mycenae. Their

the silence in

own

silence

If in

man,

silence responds to

establishing a unity between their

and the

silence in

man.

spite of this silent unity

man

presence of these walls, he feels that

speaks in the
it

is

a miracle

The Origin
that he

of

Language

possesses language at

still

He

all.

He, man, stands before these

afraid.

21
is

rather

walls, but lan-

guage, which constitutes the nature of man, seems to

vanish into non-existence or to exist by a mere accident,

on

sufferance.

II
It is

wrong

language arose out of the

to say that

lective activity of

man ("The sound

which accompanies

originally the expression

activities")* for,

if

were

that

so,

col-

of language

is

collective

animals would also

have acquired a language from their "collective

ac-

tivities."

It

is

wrong

also

to

derive language

from

gesture.f

Gesture belongs to a totally different category from

language.
it

is

not distinct from the passions by which

It is

caused;

them and

it

is

mixed up with them.

It

is

usually expresses a desire. Language,

part of

on the

other hand, expresses a being, a whole, not merely a

desire that

is

only a part of being and not a whole

Language has in it more of the subwhole being than passion and desire. Language
is in fact such an uncommon being that it creates being
itself. Gesture, on the other hand, has no independent
store of being from which it can draw to give to other
phenomena. It scurries along with no independent existence of its own.
Man would never have been able to reach language
being in

itself.

stance of

over the stepping stones of gesture, for gesture has

something
through a
thing
*

free.

of

the

unredeemed

special creative act

Language

Ludwig Noire: The

is

clear

about

can

and

it

it,

and

only

give rise to some-

free

and sovereign,

Origin of Language.

t As suggested by Etienne de Condillac, Maine de Biran and

Henri Bergson.

Man and Language

22
rising

above

itself

and leaving everything behind

except the silence from which

it

comes. Gesture, on

it

hand, is unfree, unredeemed, still commixed with the material it uses in its attempts
at self-representation. It is still inside the material and
bound up with it, not approaching the material freely
from outside as the spirit approaches the word. It is
other

the

pletely

true that gesture precedes language in the child, but

that

is

not the essential point at

all.

The

essential point

the appearance of language in the child quite inde-

is

pendently of the gesture that precedes

of the previous existence of gesture.

gesture

is

it,

and oblivious

The precedence

of

not the point, but rather the fact that by a

new

creative act each

child

Language, leaping out of

is

redeemed from gesture.*

silence,

comes into being

suddenly. Cause and existence are a unity. Language

did not evolve;

it

to

was created by a

man

not acquired by

single act. It

was

slowly and gradually, but given

him as a finished whole.

As with a blind man suddenly

restored to sight,

all

the images of his former darkness seem to be absorbed

by the one image

now

before him. So everything that

could have existed genetically before language suddenly vanishes with the advent of a single word.
has also been suggested that language derived

It

from animal sounds. But the animal's cry

act

by which something new

The

is

cry belongs to the animal in the

body belongs

to

cry are a unity.

it.

is

not an

brought into being.

same way

as its

In the animal's body, action and

The animal

is

enclosed inside

nature and cannot reach out beyond

itself

its

own

by means of

language. It often seems as though animals were try* Picard,

Max, The World of

Silence.

The Origin

of

Language

23

ing to tear themselves apart in a search for language.

Not

finding

it,

they go on tearing.

Cardinal Polignac

orangutan: "Speak

is

reported to have said to the

and

I will bless

thee"

a dictum

which suggests the distance of the animal from man,

not

nearness

its

"Language

is

him. According to Jean Paul,

to

the finest dividing line of infinity, the

dividing water of chaos

... on dumb animals

the

world makes a single impression."

Ill
It

has also been said that language originated in

the imitation of the sounds of nature and animals. But

the sounds of

human language do

sounds of nature and animals.

not derive from the

On

the contrary, those

human language.
The lower creatures urgendy desire to reach the
human level of communication. Birds do not sing
sounds aspire towards the

level of

because they cannot speak; singing

of their basic constitution.

riphery of

brook

is

human

language.

a sign that

it

is

part and parcel

the pe-

at

The murmuring

of the

waiting to come near to

language. In the silence that follows a clap of

thunder,
silence

human

is

But they sing

it

seems that language will arise from the

and

then a bird suddenly

through the silence and

all at

once a

sends

its

human

song

voice

is

heard, lured by the song of the bird.

The

following words of Jacob

to the origin of language:

ture does not

know

mains hidden from

is

it."

its

Bohme

also

"The only thing

apply

the crea-

creation; nothing else re-

LANGUAGE AND SOUND

The
it

sovereignty of the spirit

combines with that which

The

with sound.

wandering sound,
process,

sound

which expands
itself,

is

utterly

is

uses

spirit

seen in the fact that

its

opposed to

by

to achieve definition, and,

itself

into infinite space

brought back to

is

delimited by the delimiting action of the

The outward

expansion of sound

is

this

Sound

defined in language.

is

it,

vaguely

antithesis,

spirit.

transformed into

By subjecting sound to itself the

Sound is seized by the spirit, and

a spiritual expansion.

comes

spirit

alive.

tamed. Sound

but

resists

is

overtaken, captured by the

spirit.

Sound
that

is

when

physical

one becomes intensely aware of

listening to

does not understand.

someone whose language one

The

spirit

seems to be trying to

impose a pattern on the raw material of sound.

one does understand the language, however,

When
it

does

not occur to one to think of the antithesis between

sound and

spirit,

sorbed by the

for

the sound

is

completely ab-

spirit.

The suddenness with which

sound in language

is

the spirit subdues the

the suddenness of

creativeness. All languages use

more

vowels and consonants, but the

spirit

24

all

spiritual

or less the

same

forms the sounds

Language and Sound

into

words wliich are

different in every language.

sovereign that

spirit is so

languages from more or

less

The

able to create different

it is

mouth becomes

breath of the

25

the

same

materials.

"A

a picture of the world,

the type of our thoughts and feelings, says Johann von

man

Herder. "Everything that

willed

and

will

do

has ever thought, and

in the future depends

The "breath of air"

be moved and molded by

breath of air."

words, to

sound
spirit

itself

and

there

is

to the spirit,

it

is

and

ishing of sound there

man

it

rises
is

spirit, it is

to persist as

again as

pure

spirit

is

In the

pervious

spirit.

spirit.

Sound

In the van-

an intimation of the fading of

himself in death. Sound scatters in

but the

spirit.

most sublime in music.

absorbed by the

allows

dies in the spirit

the

a readiness to be ordered by the

this is seen at its

Physical sound

on a moving

attaches itself to

all

directions

always superior to the scattering

sound, always retains the mastery.

The

ubiquity of

the spirit annuls the fading of the sound of language.

Sound, which seems of

with

spirit, exists

to the spirit.

all

things least compatible

in language as

if it

belonged directly

This unity of opposites could never have

been brought about by

man

himself;

it

is

a further

proof of the divine origin of language.

II

All sounds, even those into which the spirit has not
yet entered, are

subdued along with the sound that has

been subdued by the

spirit

in

language and these

sounds include the cry of animals. In language sound

represents

all

the material

meated by the

spirit. Is

which has not

that not a sign

yet been per-

and a promise

Man and Language

26
that one day

all

things that are

reconciled and joined together?

and

now separated will be

The unity of sound

has been projected from the beginning of

spirit

Creation into the world of mutually separated things.

By being transformed

sound

into spirit,

bring the world of nature to the

life

"w"

to the

in

"wave" lends movement

in "breath"

makes

it rise;

of the spirit.

to the

The

word; the "b"

the "d" in the

and hardness

gives firmness

able to

is

word

word "hard"
itself.

In the Somali language the various tenses of the

verb are expressed by different pitches of the voice

applied to the same word. In Chinese a

meaning according

a different

to

word

whether

acquires

it is

spoken

with high or low pitch. These are examples of the

way sound is used by the spirit in language.

The sounds which express grief and sorrow, namely,
"o" and

intensify

"i,"

and natural

the physical

in

language.

Weh Weh Weh Weh

Jo

It

is

as

Damon, we

reissest

du hin?

though no space existed

pain and grief; as though

it still

in the spirit for

needed the sounds of

the natural world and wanted to have nature by

side to protect

The
pain

cry that escapes

is

as

from

man

though he were trying

in the physical

sound of the

in fear or
to

sudden

drown himself

cry, trying to disappear

therein in advance of his real death. Sometimes a

*

its

it.

Johann C. F. Holderlin, Oedipus.

man

Language and Sound

27

returning from crying regains himself and

is

restored

to wholeness.

makes of natural
sounds, language cannot have arisen from things
In spite of the use the

spirit

The onomatopoeic can reproduce

The onomatosecondary. The word "crow" contains more

onomatopoeically.

only a single characteristic, the audible.

poeic

is

than the loud cry of the crow.

mined

solely

If

words were

deter-

by acoustic impressions they would be

dependent on things; the complexity of things would

be expressed by the sound of the word, not by the

which

spirit

is

have

to follow the thing;

spirit

whole complex

able to represent the

nature of a thing in verbal sound.

it

The

would not be sovereign, nor would

Sound can remain connected with

would

spirit

would merely echo

it

it.

be

The

spirit.

the things of

nature in a demonic way, escaping from the sovereignty of the spirit and taking
of the

it

into the lower service

mere sound: "Those who are familiar with the

use of exorcism say that the same form of exorcism

loses its

beside

its

power when
own. There

translated into another dialect

is

peculiarities of the very

which has power

therefore in the qualities

to bring about this or that." *

In the act of speaking, primitive

body more

and

sound of words an inner force

violently than civilized

affected by the act of speaking

and

man moves his

He is more

man.
his

whole body

is

involved in the effort to share in the union of spirit

and sound. "What primitive man achieves by accent

and change of sound, by means of the thorax, gesture
* Origen, Anti-Celsus.

Man and Language

28

and

his

man

achieves by the structure of his sentences."

whole physique," writes Vossler,

When

a child

is

beginning to speak

"civilized

seems

it

as

though other things besides those immediately pertaining to language are trying to fight their

words.

The

spirit is

grazes the sounds. In children sound

like a ball

still

into the

it

merely

has an in-

its

own. The child throws the

and

finds pleasure in the flight

dependent existence of

sound up

way

not yet firm enough,

of the sound.

Children are not yet able, and old people are no

longer able, to subjugate the sound to the
the end of

life spirit

and sound

as everything separates
life.

The

and

spirit is a

and

spirit.

At

begin to separate, just

disintegrates at the

end of

separation that takes place between sound

kind of anticipation of the end. Where

the spirit has completely disappeared, as in amnestic

aphasia,

names become mere sound. Only the me-

chanical act of speaking remains.

The

activity of the spirit in

lacking in a healthy person.

verbal

noise,

hardly

language can also be

Words then become mere

more than

purely

phonetic

phenomenon.

The

miracle of Pentecost by which the divine

was understood

cause the spirit of the divine

that

it

entirely

guage became

word was

so powerful

permeated the body of language. Lanentirely spiritual

the diversity of languages

From

word

in different languages took place be-

the lofty height

becomes wholly

and

in the one spirit

was annulled.

where the body of language

spiritual,

language

falls

again and

Language and Sound

becoming empty, material,

again,

language

its fall,

which

has fallen, becomes aware of

up

it

now

is

once more

Thus language

the summit.
rising,

fall

But in the

physical.

aware of the height from

depth of

again, only to

29

between

lives,

and

itself

soon as

as

it

rises

reaches

falling

and

almost dying and then living again.

Ill

As

reward for

in

if

spirit

other words, sound

more

its

services to the spirit, the

allows sound to be as free as the spirit

likely that

is

music

is

in
is

the sublimate of language,"

Grimm, "than

said Jakob

itself;

allowed to become music. "It

that language

is

the pre-

cipitate of music."

When

language

however,

is

pushed

to

its

uttermost limits,

begins to change into music. In Nestroy

it

one can hear the music of Mozart, and

not existed
that

it

Mozart

might be
is

if

possible to divine

Mozart had

from Nestroy

an inevitable constituent of the world.

In music, sound becomes so independent that

hovers, as though in independence of

heaven and earth, wholly

filling

it

man, between

the space between

them, and bringing them together. Through music,

space becomes infinite and the infinite

man

sings, the

is filled.

When

song seems to come to him from that

space between heaven and earth, flowing into

him

rather than flowing out of him.

It

seems that music

is

pure sound so that in

original

word may be

trying to

fill

the space with

this purity, the purity of the

regained. Sometimes, too, music

seems to be trying to send language to sleep and keep

Man and Language

30
it

asleep until

it is

awakened by the

original

music and language alike absorbed by

silence,

word with

"Music
which. in dreaming, begins to sound." *
it.

But music dreams of language, and in dreaming

encircles
*

Max

is

it

language and dreams on behalf of language.

Picard,

The World

of Silence.

LANGUAGE AND LIGHT

When

word

Language

spoken, the

is

word that
more light.

before the
there

is

anticipate words. It

runs ahead;

Words

vance.

"Loquere ut

with

light.

is

spoken has been understood,

It

has been said that thoughts

is,

however, not the thought that

the light that words send

is

it

air is filled

bring light into the world. Even

exists to

on

in ad-

own.

are spoken in a light of their

te

videam": "Speak that

may

see you."

may

Speak, so that, through the words you speak, you

come

into the light, that

may

see you.

The

light of

language points to a knowledge which

exists before

words and a knowledge which

after

Human
The

knowledge has

light of

exists

words.

place between these two.

its

language cannot be "used."

It

raises

words above the

level

where language

undynamic, moving and shining in

pure

is

of the purposeful to a place

light.

II

Without language darkness would only be opposed

by clearness. Language turns

Whereas
bright, to

to the

man

darkness, but

it

animal the day

the day

is

light.

does not derive

opposition. Light

is

light as

31

clearness
is

Light
its

into

light.

merely clear and

true

is

opposed to

life

from

this

though there were no

Man and Language

S2
darkness. There

is

darkness in language but in no

may darkness be so near

The darkness in language

other place

the light as in

language.

strives

the

light.

abandoned

towards

Without

language

to

and everything abandoned

itself

darkness

would

be
to

darkness.
Silence belongs to language

opposed to

Silence

light.

is

and therefore

not

it is

not darkness. Silence

is

diffused light, waiting to be gathered into one light,

the light of language.

Sad words are no

less light.

Their light

is

dark and

sad words are consoling because even darkness can be

radiant with light.

In falsehoods the light burns through the space

they occupy, and devours them.

Between the darkness of

death

man

language.

birth

and the darkness of

stands brightly in the center, because of

The

brightness of language reaches back to

the darkness of birth and pushes this darkness further

back into the past and the darkness of death further

into the future.

Through

and death

impelled outwards to the edges of

human

are

existence. Birth

the light of language, birth

and death are the black edge

surrounding the light of language. In the animal,

which

lacks the light of language, birth

and death

are nearer to one another.

Ill

The

light in

from the

the subject.
origin.

Rembrandt's pictures does not come

subject.
It is

On

the contrary,

it

brings light into

the light in which the subject has

Rembrandt's light comes from the

light;

its

it is

Language and Light

33

light.

In Rembrandt's Resurrection the

light that precedes

language and the light of language

self-creating

are one.

itself

angel

who

Language

is

conceivable has here been

everything

Here
to

made

for ever but

is

redeem man. The

which God created

merely a denser
all

one.

The

visible

and

express-

one

light.

light in this picture

for

in-

which God made the decision

the light in

is

is

and language are

light. Light, angel,

ible:

absorbed by the light; the

stands within the light

man

that he

is

the light

might find himself

again after the Fall.

In the painting of Herkules Seghers things seem to

be refusing to accept the light of the word: they seem

truculent and obstinate, but perhaps the light has been

taken away from them: they are in the half-light of

sadness. In

the mantle of sadness,

man

also holds

things together.

In the Old Testament, words seem to have just

dug

themselves out into the light; a trace of the original

darkness

is

in the light; a silence

still

language; the language

self,

dazzled by

In the
light,

the

New

even

dew

Today

its

is still

own

still

in the
it-

light.

Testament words

when

is

wholly turned in on

fall

down from

the

they are not spoken: they are like

of light.
there

is

usually no light in language; words

are merely illuminated by other

turn illuminated by

still

others.

words which are in

The

light

is

indirect.

IV
Hegel

calls

light "the subject of Nature, that

Nature which has come

to itself, nature

is,

which com-

Man and Language

34

bines with itself by

sun)." But,
brightness

by the

into

man

light of

means

of

language that

it is

its

first

Language

light.

infinity of outer space,

is

the reach of language.

It

present,

rightly so: the in-

man

is

when

it

is

beyond

threatens to absorb the space

When

and language.

is

was frightened

outside the realm of light and lan-

guage. Space becomes infinite only

of light

inner

the

projects

and

(the

creation

turns the outward

into outer space. Pascal

finity of space

guage

own

the inner light of lan-

home and

at

unafraid.

The

brightness of outer space and the light of language

aspire to one another. In the light,

man grows

wards. Animals merely spread along the ground

wards

their darkness.

Even

home

in a house

versation.

The light is like

The warmth of

kindled by that

light.

at night to the village, seeing the

first light

versation.

is

like the

first light.

silence of the lonely traveler

beginning of a con-

the beginning of a con-

conversation

The language
is

suddenly

is

light,
light.

He may

already

within the

at

already almost audible, though the traveler

silent as before.

to-

in the brightness of space,

animals are like mere shadows of the

Returning

up-

home and
is

still

as

pass by the house with the

but his dark silence becomes brighter in the

He

can already hear himself and others speaking

in the light. Goethe wrote:

'What

is

'What

more

glorious than gold?' asked the King.

answered the serpent.

'Light,'
is

more

refreshing than light?' asked the King.

'Conversation,' replied the serpent.

Language and Light

35

VI
There is hardly any real light in language today.
Language burrows under the true light, whither it

knows not. Instead of light, there is only sound.

Words clash against one another: sound replaces
light. The verbal noise which is what remains of true
'

language, flickers like a smoldering

hay, without light.

One

fire

in

verbal noise smolders

sodden
its

way
r~

into another.

But language has an urge

guage

is

light

to

become

which enjoys being

comes from sound and turns into

comes

light in language.

drift

and be

own

light.

that

Lan-

Language

Sound bewould otherwise

light.

scattered are gathered together in their

Do we

Language_is

Words

light.

light.

not say "in the light of memory"?

-of the

same nature

as light. It

is

self-

contained and yet everywhere at the same time. Even

in the darkness, the world, without

permeated with

light.

knowing

it,

is

LANGUAGE AND THE WORLD

OF PURE BEING

Language

is

sum

of

total

the things

all

something that

eflFects. It is

all

pure being, that

immediate purpose and

it is

is,

which
on

exists

more than

the

mediates and

it
its

own, beyond

and something that

effect,

can never be wholly explained. This quality of pure

being

is

few

radiantly present in a

poem

lines of a

by Goethe that appears in his Chinesisch-Deutsche

JahreS'Und Tageszeiten:
Unwidersprechlich allgemeines Zeugnis,
Streitsucht verbannend, wunderbar Ereignis!
Du hist es also, bist kein blosser Schein,
In dir

triilt

The world
be wholly

Schaun und Glauben uberein.

of pure being

filled

to the truth so that

The

may

itself

it

can only

urges

be wholly

man

filled.

inexplicable in the being of a language only

the most pure Being of

I

so great that

language

becomes meaningful when

that

is

by Truth. Language

am"

there

in language.

which the

is

all,

set in relationship to

it is

that

is,

God

himself. "I

a residue of this absolute

Language

is

what

it

is,

am

Being

pure being in

spirit lives.

The Ten Commandments were

id

expressed in Ian-

Language and the World

Pure Being

of

guage and the absolute being that

is

in

37

language

thereby achieved a direct relationship to God.

The Ten Commandments

made

could have been

knov^n by means of sculpture. The gods had declared

Stonehenge and the Egyptian sphinxes,

their will in

but

man

overwhelmed by the crushing power of

is

monuments. Language enables him

these stone

tain his freedom,

The

does not

God

to re-

bow him down.

absolute being of language

Bible that

The

it

is

so great in the

himself could appear again therein.

absolute being of language exists for God's sake

as well as for

man.

bound
up with love, it would exceed itself and overwhelm
man: it would become a threat to his existence. The
If

the absolute being of language were not

man

absolute being of language keeps

him from

Man
guage.

himself

first

steady;

becomes pure being through

Not only man, however, but

also the

Creation acquires pure being through

guage.

The

existence of objects

guage and thus, through

is

saves

it

dynamism.

the violence of excessive

objects

lan-

whole

human

lan-

confirmed by lan-

is

and words, the world

formed.

The pure

being of language

is

connected with the

other basic phenomena, with Nature, love, birth and

death.

Language

is

strengthened by

with these phenomena.

vealed

more

The sound

clearly as the

sound of

connection

man when

is re-

he

is

The silence
human silence when it

of

confronted with the sounds of nature.

language becomes a real

its

of language

is

silent in face of the silence of nature.

There

is

a relationship between Death and Lan-

Man and Language

38

guage: Language
tears that flow

purged of aggressiveness by the

is

through words on the death of a be-

loved friend. Language which shrivels up

when

it

is

forced into the narrowness of the all-too-purposeful,

expands and opens up again when

warmed by

it

is

thoroughly

joy.

II

"We
is

still

'The sun

say,

rises,'

instead of, 'the sun

reached by the earth.' " * But because language be-

longs to the world of absolute being, the sun does

rise in

language.

It

not only seems that the sun

rises,

man;

it

is

only on the plane of physical abstraction that

it

is

the sun really does

rise,

"reached by the earth."

since

The

world of pure being gives

be a mere

it

rises for

truth that belongs to the

validity to

what appears

to

illusion.

In his "Architectural Fantasias in Medieval Poetry,"

I.

Trier speaks of the "remoteness from language" of

medieval architecture. But the pure being of language

also contains silence

and with

this

silence

language

The

does have contact with medieval architecture.

architecture
isolated

is

taken up into the silence and

and remote. Architecture

language

is

only isolated

no longer strong enough

silence within, that

what

is

is

truly belongs to

is

not

when

to contain the

when language has lost

Then it ceases to have any

to say,
it.

relationship with the silent being of architecture, be-

cause

it

has lost

its

own

essential silence.

* Mauthner, Beitrdge zur Kritik, der Sprache.

Language and the World

Pure Being

of

39

III

Language belongs
being that
to

it

much

so

world of absolute

to the

seems always to have existed and never

The

have passed through any process of becoming.

pure being of language

so intensive that

is

would

it

were destroyed. Words do not

recreate itself

if it

only in man.

They

exist

and would

are engraven in the air

be heard again in the silence which would follow the

destruction of language.

Language belongs

the world of absolute being that

past

and future into

own

its

present

it

much

so

able to

is

life.

to

draw

word some-

times contains past and future as well as the present.

"There

is

something prophetic and inspired in lan-

guages," so wrote Joseph Joubert.

solute purity of

and

its

retain foreign

them, as

if

being, language

words

as

its

it is

is

the ab-

able to absorb

had always contained

they had always been part of

"The German language

by

if it

Through

will never be

it.

impoverished

hospitality to strangers," wrote Jean Paul, "since

forever producing

roots a hundred, times

from

its

own

eternally fruitful

more children and grandchil-

dren and great-grandchildren than the foreign

spring which

it

off-

adopts. Centuries hence the forest that

own roots is still bound to overshadow and stifle the foreign words which have germinated from seed sown by the wind."
has arisen from our

IV
Because

it

belongs to the world of pure being, lan-

guage comes between

man and

things.

Man

is

unable

to take direct possession of things because language

Man and Language

40

forms a barrier. The power of pure being that

language creates a space between

There

is

man and

is

in

the object.

no such intervening space between animals

and things because animals do not have language.

They take hold

of the object before

them unchecked

by the restraining power of language; they possess the

object even before they take hold of

which language
spires

him with

creates

to a purely

it.

The

man and

distance

things in-

a reverence for things. Animals are

merely afraid of things.

he also destroys

between

When man

destroys language,

this reverence for things

and

reverts

animal fear of things. Fear and unre-

strained action belong together. Reverence for things

brings language near to their origin. Without this

reverence and respect, language becomes

hard and

unprotected, a mere tool which can be used for any

purpose and which can be replaced by anything and

everything.

THE MEANING OF LANGUAGE

Human

language

man

is

woven

into the

whole pattern of

language, they would speak for themselves.

human
The world

would be

and

the world. If

trophe.

did not take things up into

in a state of constant eruption

Things would have no continuous

they would always be changing.

of

magic. The gods who

It

catas-

existence;

would be

world

are not conditioned by lan-

guage and do not condition language, would become

and monsters.

idols

Man

too

would be changed: he

would be bewitched. Language holds man and things

fast,

keeps them from changing and exploding.

No

measure and moderation existed when there was no

language. In the era of Ichthyosaurians, animals and
plants

were of exorbitant

in these primeval

size.

There was a

solitariness

forms and a vain attempt to break

There was a melancholy in

through the

solitariness.

them but an

unspiritual melancholy. In this primeval

world the rays of the sun were dark.

It

was a world

seemingly lying in wait for something and expanding

into a

world of measurelessness. Without language,

space and time are undivided: never-ending space and

never-ending time albeit not with the neverendingness

of eternity.

"As the dumb creation swims about

in the

external world in a dark bewildering sea of waves,"

41

Man and Language

42

wrote Jean Paul, "so

man would

heaven of outward phenomena

guage

be

lost in the starry

he did not use lan-

to divide the light into constellations, thus re-

solving the

by

if

Whole

his conscious

mind."

up of the Whole
whole

half of the

With

into parts capable of assimilation

Man

does not do this dividing

for himself alone: he does

it

on

the advent of language the eruptions of

ture cease

be-

creation.

and law appears. The

Na-

silence of things

is

bound up with the silence

of man and the language of man. Man is saved by
language from the menace of silent things. At the
same time, through language, man liberates things.
Even today, when man abandons a lonely countryside
it seems to develop on its own again: the plains grow
larger, rocks are forced up against the sky, waters are
forced into the depths of the earth and waters from
no longer menacing

the depths destroy

When

language

for

it.

is

their

man loses his

Word from which

destroyed

ship with the Original

words and

it is

relation-

his

own

measure are derived. The external

world also reverts to anarchy and confusion. Things

become exorbitant again. This time, however,

man who

it

is

provokes the measurelessness. In the auto-

matically expanding world of technics, language has

lost its

power over things and they develop on

own. Things resemble one another

and end of time according

was natural

to

in the beginning

is

at the

their

beginning

Giovanni Vico.

What

imitated concretely at

the end.

Martin Heidegger believed, "The nature of

determined by the nature of Being."

On

man

is

the contrary:

The Meaning
the nature of Being

Language

of

determined by man, by the

is

language of man. Being opens

be determined by

man and

man. Once Being

is

itself

up

so that

it

may

brought into the word of

no longer determined by man,

him and determines

rebels against

43

it

itself.

II

Language

man

wise

is

not a mere collection of symbols: other-

himself would be a mere symbol, a

be man's arrival at number

nil.

Brice Perain says

a weakness of language that there

word

for every single object

not really a weakness at

situation

had

its

own

cease to be language:
bols

and

all. If

number

Death would merely

related only to other numbers.

situation.

But

this is

every object and every

particular word, language

it

it is

not a special

is

would be

would

a collection of sym-

and numbers. There would cease

to be

any en-

man and the object: the object would

registered. Man would be deprived of the

counter between

merely be

which he takes hold of the object. Where

no freedom, as in a dictatorship, man himself
becomes a mere number, like objects themselves, a
unit to be registered, a cipher which the dictator can
free act by

there

is

destroy at any time.

According

to Ernst Cassirer,

language

is

a "form of

symbolism, based on the organization of the world

into things

and

sitoriness." *

that. If

processes, into

Language

is

that,

permanence and
but

it is

tran-

more than
man would

also

language were only symbolical,

have no future: he would only have memories: everything would be retrospective. Language
* Ernst Cassirer, Sprache

und Mythos.

is

more than

Man and Language

44
a

form of symbolism;

so,

immediate

it is

fronted with the reality of language.

man

language that

words

gives

has developed, and

Language

their reality.

the reality by

which

would have

is

It

is

through

it

is

this that

more

confronted, since

it is

into being through language.

Christ

much

reality, so

become symbols when con-

indeed, that things

shattered

When He
human

real

than

man came

became man,

language

if

lan-

guage had only been a form of symbolism. Language

was

real,

however, and the

reality of

God came

into

the reality of the word.

It is

guage

only possible to believe in the reality of lanif

No

life.

one believes in the

means nothing

to

reality

and value of human

word because human

tyrant keeps his

life

him.
Ill

It is

God

the fact that

has spoken to us that makes

our

own

speech understandable.

life

that

came

The superabundant
human language because God

into

spoke to man, supplies the basis for understanding be-

tween

man and man.

and passing on
participates

in

In the process of understanding

to others

the

what he has understood, man

superabundant

shares in the act of love

which

from God. Understanding

superabundant

life

of

is

is

life

of

God; he

in this overflowing

a participation in the

God. Language

is

indeed what

memory
memory of
the memory

Friedrich Schlegel called "the great collective

of the

human

race,"

but

knowledge and experience

of

its

it

is

alone,

not the
it is

also

divine origin.

In silence, language has knowledge of God: lan-

guage remembers God

in the silence,

when man

has

The Meaning
already forgotten
there

know

can

Word

through the

is

In the language of knowledge

by which

Human

a higher plane than

man

known by God,

man was

created.

man

knowledge has

Man's

knowledge

possible only because of the

pre-given.

is

45

of divine knowledge, for

only because he has been

knowledge
that

Him.

a reflection

is

Language

of

its

could attain by his

being on

own

un-

Language lifts man up above himself and

above the words he speaks. "Man would not be able
aided

effort.

know

to

the nature of things

original status

and

stability to

he did not owe his

if

thinking and speaking,"

according to Franz von Baader. Language comes from

outside

man and has an innate tendency

man to other men. Language

from one

to

move on

presupposes

the existence of others. Separation from others,

self-

exclusion from others has to be brought about by a

special act, since

man

language binds

to his fellow-

And

men. Language has a unifying power.

because

language and thought exist from the very beginning

in relationship with other

)dearly like to inflict.

:

men,

man

can never en-

succeed in inflicting on others the evil he would

tirely

cause he

is

"WhcTihtends

Man

The

other person

prese nt in the thinking

evil

is

protected be-

and acting of him

mwards him. ^

does not speak only in order to know.

He

knowing contains the quesknown by him who makes it possible for

speaks to be known. All

tion:

me

Am

to

know

at all?

Knowing

is

an asserting and

a questioning. In every sentence that

is

an echo of the answer

where

art

thou?"

known by God
In the

Man

to

is

also

spoken there

God's question:

desires the truth that

he

"Adam
may be

in truth.

modern world,

truth

is

mere statement,

state-

Man and Language

46

ment that is uninhibited by any question to Him who

makes all statement possible. The answer is no longer
given to another, that it may be tested by Him. Questions are no longer answered by answers, but by other
questions.

By using language

and foundation,

as its material

ence inevitably proceeds beyond

A new

it.

sci-

"Logos,"

which is guided and controlled by a different principle

from that of linguistic thinking, now emerges and develops with increasing precision and independence. And
compared with this new "Logos" linguistic forms seem
mere hindrances and obstructions, which must be progressively overcome by the strength and character of the

new

principle.*

TV
moment of time man is able to reach out
own structure and his own past by means

In every

beyond

his

of language. Because they lack language, animals are

imprisoned within themselves.

Man

is

always develop-

ing through language. Animals remain mere animals.

They

On dumb

animals

a single total impression."

Human

are imprisoned in the world.

"the world

makes

gestures are different

from animal

gestures. In ani-

mals they are a substitute for language

in man they

are the opposite of a substitute, they are language over-

flowing into the

to share in

Man

allowing the body

involved in language even

is

Silence

human body and

language and thought.

is

when he

is silent.

more than unspoken language. Words

are

present in the silence; they are an organic part of the

human
* Ernst

face

and form. The

Cassirer,

faces of the

Madonnas

Philosophy of Symbolical Forms.

of

The Meaning

Language

of

47

Cimabue, Duccio and Simone Martini are

would

in the silence they

which they have come

Why

language.

became the

is

if

thought. But whereas thought

language, in pictures

Words

"We

are

more

it

is

Pictures are

though pictures contain

language,

as

and not pictures

man?

specific expression of

not so clear

and

from

they were not waiting for

that language

it

silent

revert to the infinity

is

more

alive

and awake

in

in a state of repose.

direct than pictures.

need only

to

draw

the curtain of words in

order to see the tree of knowledge clearly and purely,"

wrote George Berkeley. But

really hide anything:

sary:

it

prevents an

man and

things.

is

it

all

this

too violent encounter between

For animals, objects are an extension

of themselves: that

is

Animals are nearer

why

they rush straight at them.

to things because they lack lan-

guage; but they are also far more

things than
objects but

is

it

not

does

curtain

transparent but also neces-

at the

man. Language helps man

also helps

him

to

mercy of
to possess

keep his distance from

them.

When
and

language

st ands

as a_barrierjbe tween

things, things are unable to

directly; their

medium

p enetrate

m an

man

so

demonic powers^are lteiLed.thK)ugh the

of language.

Language

replaces the natural

immediacy of the animal world with the immediacy

of the spirit.
to

The

direct

and the

one another and yet they

in language.

Man

indirect are opposed

co-exist quite peacefully

could not have created this co-

Man and Language

48
existence

and

origin of

human

it

yet another proof of the divine

is

language.

VI
Language
emotion but

more than the expression

is

ner emotions.

The

not bound to do

it is

EngUshman

that the

may

expression

uses a verb of

indicating the

more

am

static

and conservative nature of

mobile nature of the German.

German

well), whilst the

motion (Es geht mir gut), thus

the English compared with the

that the

has been said

so. It

expresses his state of health in

the form of a state of being (I

German

of man's in-

correspond to the

expression

is

more dynamic and

It is possible,

tion of the inner situation: the expression

attempt to get rid of that in the inner

turbs

its stability.

to the- inner

Man

is

however,

not a precise representa-

Language may

may

be an

spirit that dis-

in this

way be an

aid

life.

also protected

by language since

it

does not

allow everything to reach him. There exist in the

world things more

language.

Much

terrible

than can be expressed in

of the fear that

men

feel

today comes

from the inhuman world beyond language, by which

language

bounds
tact

itself

threatened.

is

to horror

and

tries to

with language and

its

The
remove

dictator
it

from

sets
all

no
con-

moderating influence. The

world of the dictatorships was a new world, imitating

in

demonic fashion the beginning of the world before

the existence of language. Speech

the gas ovens in

were done

to death.

his helpless victim,

was powerless before

which millions of human beings

The

shriek of the dictator flogging

and the shriek of the victim being

The Meaning

Language

49

was one combined, undifferentiated

flogged

Language was no longer

The

speechless fear.

was

of

still

present:

dictator's only

shriek.

only crime and

answer

to atrocity

greater atrocities.

VII

Language
and

it

is

thanks to the

is clear,

clarity of the

Logos;

mysterious, thanks to the mystery of the

Logos. "Language

revelation

is

and the same time,"

said

and mystery

Hamann. Language

one

at
is

mys-

when it is revealing. Man is more myswhen he is speaking than when he is silent.

Man is a mystery to himself when confronted with
his own words. Clarity in language exceeds the clarity
that is needed to make a thing clear. Thanks to this
terious even

terious

excess of clarity, a light proceeds

the object.

The

the object to
this light.

from language

super-clarity of language

is

light

which the words give a name, shines

The

light

to

and
in

the joy of the object at being

is

with the word. But the light of the word

reflects

the

Original Light. This clarity and this light form the

mark of
name to what has always existed but has never been named before. But
genius not only gives a name to the hitherto unnamed;
it also creates new unnamed things and new things
that cannot yet be named. These new and not-to-benamed things are a manifestation of the immanentmystery of language. Nietzsche thought the
the genius was that he gives a

transcendent.
a weakness:
of that

Lack of
it

clarity is therefore

can be quite legitimate

which must

still

be veiled.

not always

an intimation

Man

has to learn to

wait patiendy until the veiled word shall be finally

revealed.

LANGUAGE AND TRUTH

Man

speaks in the language which was

truth wlien

God

language because
is

a despair in

ing, a

spoke in

God

it,

is

it.

There

no longer

in

is
it

a sadness in

Himself; there

a disillusionment, a rising

something that has been

for

Him who

was

in the

and

fall-

lost.

Language

left

empty by God

however,

fill

the

of an invading army;

waiting

is

Word.

In poetry language seems to forget

not,

with

backward and forward movement, a searching

for

space

filled

is filled

its

despair: the

by poetry. Poetry does

empty space with the violence

it

always ready to vanish at

is

any moment. Then, when poetry has gone, the yearning for the expected

Word

before and the sadness too

becomes
is

still

greater than

greater. Poetry

reminds

us that the space occupied by language also belongs

to

God.

There

is

a circumspectness in the ancient languages,

a slowness and a premonition of the

There was a greater awareness

coming of

in the

Christ.

ancient lan-

guages of the future coming of Christ than there

modern languages

of the fact that

He

guages today vie with one another

Christ has appeared in the
50

Word.

is

in

has come. Lanto

forget

that

Language and Truth

51

II

When

truth

directly that
is

is

in language, it exists in language so

seems to have always been there. Truth

it

in language as

though

had had no beginning. All

it

beginnings are swallowed up by

eignty.

develop for

own

its

in order to help
It

may

Truth

It

man

sake, but

man,

omnipotent sover-

its

Truth sometimes develops.

does not need to

and

lives in time,

truth adapts itself to his nature.

be however, that in the process of developing.

intends to relate

itself

all

things to

itself.

Lying always has the character of something that

has evolved:

with
it

is

it

drags

whole background around

its^

own

leers at its

it; it

past;

on what

it

can attract to

self-subsistent being of

Truth

is

is

it

itself; it

its

insecure;

has no

The one

it

lives

self-sufficient,

own.

so powerful that one sentence

tains truth can provide truth for

ever.

bent with leering;

it is

incapable of pure being;

all

which con-

objects whatso-

thing about which the truth has been

were

told stands proxy as

it

same with a

perfect

poem:

two

but the whole world seems to exist in

objects,

such a poem.

It

for other objects. It

it

may

is

the

contain but one or

has the power of attracting other ob-

jects to itself.

When

an object

is

lied about, all objects,

not only

the one immediately affected, are distorted. That

why

the liar

is

afraid.

He

is

cannot bear the fact that

he himself may be involved in the general falsehood

resulting

from the

Language

is

lie

which he has

created.

unable to tolerate too

being expressed in

it.

If too

much

much

untruth

untruth has passed

Man and Language

52
through
it

is

it,

language

speak the truth but

space

able to speak the truth, but

is still

no longer able

to retain

manages

just

It

it.

no longer able

is

to give

to

the

it

needs to be secure. Truth has no real existence

it

any longer;

in language

appears only to disappear

it

again.

There

is

a surplus of truth in language

which does

not appear in the spoken word. This surplus impels

language into the future, to

jects shall

guage comes
future;

it

new

objects until all ob-

be brought to the reality of the truth. Lanalive

through

this

movement

into the

prevents truth from stagnating.

Ill

"It
is

is

never sufficiently considered that a language

really only symbolical

and metaphorical and only

expresses a reflection of the objects." *

the object loses

the

language but makes up for

immediacy of
is

truth.

The

fact

that

is

immediacy of the physical

in

this loss

by gaining the

The immediacy

of the physical

covered by the immediacy of the truth.

The

physical

material of the object no longer needs to force

upon man, and because language belongs

the world of truth, the object acquires a

itself

to a world,

new

fullness,

the fullness and immediacy of a world.

Language

is

delimited by the fact that

a world, the pattern of

frontier,

which imposes

however, there

the realm of language.

is

It

a sense of
is

only

reduced to mere verbal noise that

Verbal noise
* Goethe,

is

it

belongs to

a limit.

what

lies

On

this

beyond

when language
it

is

has no limits.

vague, here and everywhere, and at the

Farben Lehre.

Language and Truth

same time, nowhere: that

boundlessness

the

is

53
of

verbal noise.

There

is

a tree"

is

in the order within

by

set

is

But

exists.

Even before it is taken up into

is drawn towards the
The earth and man would be oppressed by
up

it

into

the truth, the

truth.

the tree

which he himself

arch over the mere statement and

truth forms an

draws

merely a statement. The

when

sentence becomes true only

man

mere statement and

a difference between a

is

the truth. "That

statements

itself.

mere statement

they

would

lie

them up

into itself

The outward

as

if

in

truth did not raise

if

and take them out of themselves.

physical

firmed by the truth.

around us

all

densely crowded warehouses

The

form of man

also

is

con-

act of truth, the decisive, de-

limited, sovereign act of truth corresponds to the de-

sovereign quality of the human form.

human form is a pendant to the truth of
man. The human form would be thrown upwards by

cisive, delimited,

The

upright

the truth

own
It

if it

did not point upwards already of

its

accord.
is

not sufficient merely to speak the word of

truth, or

merely to repeat

it.

It

must have come

by an act of decision; only then will

pearance of real truth.

it

to

man

have the ap-

A man can be utterly permeated

by the truth. His body will then be transparent like

the transparent

The

surplus

the body.

shadow which

which

The

is

is

around the

in truth speaks in

truth has

become

truth.

and through

man and

begets the

truth.

"Truth does not need

known;

it

may

to be

spoken in order to be

be possible to get at

it

more

certainly

Man and Language

54

without waiting for the actual words, without even

taking them into account at

ward

signs,

from

all,

from a thousand out-

certain invisible effects

which

cor-

respond in the world of the spiritual to what atmospherical changes represent in the physical world," so

wrote Marcel Proust.

Human
truth.
its

society

Then

effort

on the

must be based on

love will not be

on building a true

truth, above all

on

consumed by lavishing

all

society. If the society exists

basis of truth, love will overflow

thereby become wholly

itself.

from

it

and

LANGUAGE AND DECISION

Through language God made a decision for man before ever man was able to make a decision. Decision is
woven

Freedom is
makes it pos-

into the structure of the world.

given to

man

sible for

him

in advance,
to

perform

and

this alone

own

his

act of freedom.

Man

does not become free through himself but through

this

Language

divine gift of freedom.

freedom

to

itself

brings

man. Language contains from the very

beginning a movement towards the act of freedom.

Language has contact with the very beginning when

the decision for man was made.

God
and

is

always in freedom, therefore in

silence are one.

and speaks through

When man

make

is

silent

him language

through language

silence.

speaks he

with his very first

to decide for

He

in the realm of language

is

word, in the realm where he

good or

a decision, he

is

in

is

free

Even when he does not

the place where decisions

for evil.

can be made. In the very act of speaking

man

rises

to a higher level.

may be that the first word arose as an exclamation

man was afraid because he, man, was able to
move, by his own decision, into the place where God
It

of fear:

himself makes his decisions.

55

Man and Language

56

The

man more than he himself

More than merely man himself is
for man is more elevated by the act of

freedom gives

act of

has put into

it.

active therein,

freedom than he could elevate himself: he

attains

more than he himself intends.

Language itself is exalted because it is in language
that man makes decisions; it is ready for decision and
waits for

The

it.

fullness w^hich

about, that

is

Whatever

to decision.

is

in the

it

is

mind

of

man, belongs

that decisions are

not intended to be alone.

It

wants

taken up into a world, into the fullness of the

mind and

made
be

to

human

spirit.

II

Man

man

is

by dint of language, but he only be-

comes a subject when he makes decisions with and by

means

of language. Decision strikes, like a clock,

the person,

the

subject,

comes into being.

and

Man

is

God but he creates himself once again

created by

through decision.

When

he

is

silent

and before he has made a

de-

man is not wholly himself, he is spread out in

his own silence and still connected with all the silent
things outside man. The silence of man and the
silence of things are not yet entirely separate; man is
not yet clearly delimited. He is still exposed to the
cision,

transforming influence of the things with which he

is

connected.

Man

is

usually only in a state of preparation for

becoming a

subject.

The

subject

is

constituted in de-

Language and Decision

Previously

cision.

it

as

is,

it

57

were, the pre-subject

waiting for the decision.

Man

becomes

from

decision,
silence in

by detaching himself, through

free

former connection with

his

and outside him. That

the

all

the basis of

is

all

freedom.

Through

man becomes

decision

as

one

who

has just

been created. His whole history and genesis

sorbed by the decision: the decision stands on
like a thing, decision

speaks, speaks to

and thing are one. For a moment,

and
any

subject,

word and

eternity

Often when

man

through
I,

illness

rate, object

and Thou are without

the

is

make

fails to

it,

own
word

itself,

any

moment

the unity of paradise

without noticing

of the

thing, I

For

discrepancy.

at

ab-

is

its

moment

of

attained.

a decision, he tries,

to gain assurance of his person

and pain. Some

illnesses are

due

to loss

to lack of decision.

Through language that is spoken aloud man summons himself, brings himself to himself, but that
which was connected with him in the silence, is part
of the spoken word. It shares

the act of freedom.

that

Man

which cannot make

within

him and

to share in

decisions for

itself,

the silence

The words which are

within him wait for man to

outside him.

contained in the silence

make

and wants

takes into the act of freedom

decisions in them, too.

All things, a whole world, as well as words themselves quiver in the

The monologue
traordinary

nature

language of the pre-Socratics.

in tragedy

of

accords with the ex-

decision.

The

subject,

that

Man and Language

58

comes into being through decision,

is

monologue with the words with which

decision;

monologue,

the

in

alone in the

it

has

arisen in decision, has the joy of hearing

made

its

which has

language,

itself.

Ill

When

he

is

and

of time

man

silent

dispersed in a vagueness

is

and

space. Existence

actuality are created

by the language of decision. Time, reposing time,

created by decision. This time
logical time. Chronological

were always able

make

to

time

stopped. If

is

he would

decisions,

an eternal present. Space also ceases

when

a decision

cision

and becomes

man. Things

is

made.

It

is

is

opposed to chrono-

is

man

live in

to be unlimited

delimited by the de-

real space, space that belongs to

are protected in this space.

They

are

taken out of the realm of expediency and restored to

their true wholeness.

In the space where decisions are

made man meets

again the basic phenomena of love, happiness, death,

and

suffering, waiting to be

decision.

The

brought to

act of "freedom,

reality

through

emerging from the un-

fathomable depth of individuality," according to Karl

Humboldt,

is

able to

embrace the transcendent quality

of things.

The

space and the time which

selves outside the

selves again,

/^he

and

jump

over them-

realm of decision, overtake them-

fill

themselves again.

language of the Bible

is

the realm of con-

tinuous decision; there are not enough

men and

things

to be decided in

it.

The

space of the Bible expands

xontinuously, because the act by which

God made

his

Language and Decision

man, never

decision for

59

ceases. Therefore, the

words

of the Bible have not passed away, because the divine

act of decision

always in

is

it.

IV
Through

the act of decision a surplus comes into

being,

which exceeds the

leased

and impregnates other

ject
istic
its

which made

it

free.

The

of the act of freedom

own

accord.

Man

act itself.

is

himself

surplus

is

re-

objects besides the ob-

almost divine characterthat

it

acts creatively of

sustained in the sphere

is

of freedom for a time without having constandy to

maintain the act of freedom.

man and

It

decision: the surplus in the

self-identification,

Thus he

inner continuity. That

which proceeds from the

makes the
is

unnecessary for

new

one decision maintains him

in the right order automatically.

of grace

is

things always to be determined by a

experiences
is

the gift

act of decision. It

breathlessness of continuous decision,

which

so characteristic of dialectical theology, unnecessary.

In this realm

The

man

is

also prepared for faith.

surplus sustains not only the individual

has performed the act of freedom, but others, too.

act of

freedom

fellowship. This

is
is

performed for others:

the real fellowship of

it

who
The

creates a

man.

The surplus exists above all for the sake of those

who are unable to decide for themselves. Thus love is
brought into being, without a special

What

act.

when the act of freedom is no longer performed? The human world declines; it becomes poorer, weaker, when it is deprived
surplus

is lost,

however,

of the help of this surplus.

It

becomes disordered,

Man and Language

60

man

since

that

is

incapable of setting in order everything

in order of

set

is

its

own

accord through the

The surplus is the enduring grace

bestowed on human freedom, which man

grace of the surplus.

which

is

can give himself, so to speak, the grace from below.

The world
is

of

missing.

without

it.

man

is

This

when

inevitably impoverished

The world becomes

colder

it

and poorer

the true entropy, not the entropy

is

of the universe, but that of the

human

world.

Decision for evil brings about a minus, hence the

horror that follows an evil deed: one
that evil itself

In the

ment

moment

not only
it.

man is for a moof man has not yet

before a decision,

in the place

taken place. But

where the

when he

the enormity of the

feels

shrinking, but the world with

is

fall

falls, it is like

first fall is

the

first fall,

repeated.

contradiction in conversation evokes a sadness

in the

which

speakers,

is

deeper than the sadness

evoked by mere dissension. The sadness reaches down

into that depth

of

man,

arose.

where the

original dissension, the fall

conversation nearly always begins

with hope and nearly always finishes with sadness.

In

the

language

formulae there

is

into the present.

mathematical

of

no past from which

The language

mulae which has no

past,

and

physical

guilt reaches

of mathematical for-

and modern man, who has

forgotten his guilty past, correspond to one another.

There

is

a great forgetting in these formulae, and

sometimes seems

naked
to

is

as

if

it

the only reason they are so

that they are waiting for that to be restored

them which they

are lacking.

They

are yearning to

Language and Decision

61

be related to man's past and man's guilt in the past.

Therefore they seek desperately to create guilt in the

present and the future.

Language

itself

regenerated by the act of de-

is

In this sphere of the Original, language

cision.

becomes original again.

word

An

attains significance

word

itself

worn-out

by being taken up into the

language outside the realm of

act of decision. In the

the decision one

insignificant or

rolls

on

to another; the

mass of

words moves forwards horizontally, almost without

any form

at all.

By

the act of decision, the horizontal

structure of language
structure;

man now

is

transformed into a vertical

fetches

up words by

a special act.

Words no longer fetch other words: the horizontal

movement from word to word is interrupted by the
vertical line

word.

its

which goes from

Words

are

one can almost hear

flow;

Through

man

released

to the object

from

the

and

normal

them being detached.

word is applied only

the act of decision a

Words become

to

one

of

freedom words are chosen and delimited. Man's

object.

style is

formed.

clearer

is

The

exact again. In the act

clearer the act of

freedom

is,

the

the style.

In the Bible words always

move from

the speaker

to the object and then back again to the subject, and

then to the object again. There

riers

are, as it were, bar-

between the individual words on account of

this vertical structure;

one has to get over

before one can get to the next word.

this barrier

Man and Language

62

The

poet

able to restore originality to language:

is

he possesses the original language before

and decision may seem superfluous

all

decision,

He

him.

to

is

in

danger of despising the act of decision.

Language

when man no

destroyed

is

decisions in

When man

like gelatin.

longer

one word becomes glued

it:

no longer makes decisions

in words, the gelatinous mass

along wherever

it

wills.

The

words

of

no longer

sumes that

it

exists

Freedom

is

the light in

is

where

it

is

lowship of

one

as-

indicated.

human

action, just as lan-

the light in sound, and light

of space, the eye of space.

him

rolls

exists, it is

only indicated in an exaggerated fashion:

guage

makes

to another

Freedom

is

the radiance

lives in this fel-

light.

VI

The

can therefore bring the

the surplus that

is

to the following statement

Thou

existence of the

ence of the

I,

to itself

is

through

not antithetical

by Ferdinand Ebner: "The

does not presuppose the exist-

but, vice versa, the existence of the I

presupposes that of the

the

Thou

in decision. This

creates the

Thou"

Thou, but

for

do not think that

that the

is

created by

the surplus that stems from God, the surplus which

lies

in the decision of the

Ebner regards language

I.

entirely

the relationship between the

guage does not

the

Thou and

exist,

from the angle of

Thou and

the

I.

Lan-

however, only for the sake of

for the sake of the

I,

but also for the

sake of the objects: the objects seek for a correspond-

Language and Decision

63

ence in words, the pure facticity of objects would be

more dense and material

still

if

they had no corre-

down

spondence in words. Things would sink

more

into the merely material, they

into themselves, into even

still

would sink down

more compressed

material,

the vaulted sky of words were not above them,

if

which draws them upwards. Things

are held in bal-

ance by language.
the

If

and the Thou were on

would be

danger of taking

in

and the
monument, not

their

and

itself

own, the
its

devotion

would then be

too seriously

act of decision

like a

a self-evident part of the world.

Ebner holds the

a polar antithesis.

I and the Thou in the clamp

The danger of polar concepts

that they reduce the objects

of
is

which they apprehend

to the

pure formality of an antithesis. Ebner was pro-

tected

from

this

danger by the earnestness of his ex-

moment he was a being created by

God and in the next moment a being

istence; in every

Thou

the

of

dissolved by the solitariness of the

next

moment

God and
the

and then

down in the
having the Thou and

again sinking

constantly

I;

I,

again a being created by the

in his existence the creation of the

recovery of the

of

solitariness of

losing the I

and the

were a unity, the two

in the

Thou

and

loss

situations

were

only separate in reflection.

The
God,
itself

and

The

would

inevitably cease to be in the

Thou

of

would be absorbed by the Thou, if the Thou

did not withdraw from the I, withdraw in love
it

I free to turn to the divine Thou.

and the Objects would be absorbed by the

so leave the
I

Man and Language

64

divine Thou, the

therein,

if

God

and the world would disappear

in his love

had not

left a

space be-

tween himself and the world. Hence the a priori and

transcending quality of
finity of space.

all

space, hence too the in-

LANGUAGE AS A TOTALITY

IN

MAN

Language

man;

a totality in

is

which

a totality

reflection of the divine origin of language.

exists in
is

man

is

Language

before he speaks; the whole of language

silent inside

him.

"It

is

impossible to conceive the

origin of language as beginning in the description of

objects

by single words which are then put together

to

made up

of

form a language. In
single

speech

reality

is

not

words which precede the formation of language

On the contrary, the single words proceed from speech as a Whole." *

as a

Whole.

Like the bird which, flying from our colder clime

Egypt in the autumn, has Egypt inside

to

Egypt

is

feathers
it

is

as

on

much
its

it

is

body

only where

always inside

is

and parcel of the bird

so that

when

it

has always been

it

man

him

inside

Language

part

as a totality.

arrives in

is

Even before he speaks

man

as a totality

and permanently

and

is

the basis

intellectual continuity.

relationship of language as a totality to the

individual

word

is

the individual
*

Egypt

as a silent totality.

in

of man's spiritual

to

as the

so language

hence the continuity of man. Language

The

itself

like that of

human

humanity

being:

as a

whole

the totality of

Wilhelm von Humboldt, Einleitung zum Kawi-Wer\.

65

all

Man and Language

66

words

is

man,

in

although he cannot see

Language

Language

He

it.

Whole

man

to

maintain the

in general.

exists as a totality

even in the deaf mute.

cannot speak, but he understands the relation-

ships of things: he has inside himself the

and by means of

lence of language

he

whole

since those

mute

is

of the

who

dumb

keys

is

He

speak,

The

deaf

without notes: every movement

an unspoken word.

like

perhaps the origin of Socrates's saying that

learning

memory? Confronted with an

is

language remembers

The

tains.

who

can speak speak for him.

like a piano

Is this

one of those

is

si-

language

this silent

able to penetrate the barrier of muteness.

is

shares in language; he

all

just

for the individual

exists

as a totality helps

category of the

man

in his silence. It exists for

whole of humanity

as the

object

is

remembers what

itself,

object,
it

con-

already contained in the silent

language.

II

When man

speaks, he fetches the words

from the

silent

language within; he takes them out of their

silent,

almost vegetative relationship with other words,

and

sets

them

in

new

context by

means of the

Logos. Language becomes whole again through the

Logos.

Through

the

logical

whole of the dark

light.

order of spoken words the

interior

language

Does not conversation

is

recreated in the

contain, apart

from many

other things, an attempt to raise the whole of the

dark interior language into the light of speech?

To

Language

Man

as a Totality in

provide the words taken from the

guage with a new context

an

is

67

silent interior lan-

act of love.

Love and

language belong together.

Through
him,

man

the silent language

is

which he has within

related to everything that

vague and

is

undetermined, belonging almost more to these things

than to himself.
gives
is

him

It

is

definition.

silent

is

first

man

and uncertainty, but

beset with fear, darkness

giveness

word which

language within

the spoken

The

already present in the silence within.

for-

The

dark, vegetative nature of the silent language impels

the spirit to create the brightness of the truth above
the darkness. Every

word which

spoken in the

is

brightness of truth comes from the interior darkness.

Every word repeats the journey that language

first

made out of the darkness.

The interior totality of language can also be merely
an abyss: then the spirit does not know how to move
words out of the abyss; the
fetching words

up from the

spirit

has difi&culty in

abyss.

Ill

Confronted with a

tree

man

says

"That

As he

says this, the tree rises

silent

language within; the tree stands

thicket,

an individual

moment seems

to

tree,

"That

is

a tree!"

has

named

above the

just created. One never

moment when man says

have been

Word and

whether the

itself.

isolated, taken

a tree."

a single object which for

sees a tree so clearly as in the

possible to say

is

from the thicket of the

tree are one;

tree has

it

is

im-

been named or

For a moment the spoken word

away from the

silent,

is

vegetative re-

Man and Language

68

lationship of the interior language but not yet quite

belonging to the object which

to.

In this

have been

which

this, in

the

intended to belong

power

this

to

it

embraces the object

in the very next

moment when it
moment it yearned

to return to the

sad; for a

language in

silent

word seems

with the power of the very

moment. Just before

was isolated, the word

names

it

it is

of isolation the

just created,

word. With

first

was

moment

depths within, to the dark

the

vagueness of the silent language which forms a rim

of sadness round the
attains the truth

word

filled

new word. Only when

The spoken word

detaches

speech, but underneath

continues to be heard.

and
it

itself

from the darkness

enters the brightness of

the whole interior language

The

darkness has not been

abandoned; the spoken word

is

have not yet been spoken

birds

that

sit

seem

an envoy sent

like

The words

out from the silent language within.

like birds

like

little

they rise above the surface of the sea.

sent forwards to the object but also

the silent language from which

on behalf
over

it.

interior

the

is

with brightness.

of the silent language

of silence:

word

the

by naming the object exactly

it

The more

the
its

sea

waves before

The word

is

backwards into

has come:

of the silent language but does not

language on

that

on the

it

speaks

triumph

word is accompanied by the

upward journey, the fuller it

will be.
It is

interior

the poet

who

is

best able to

language audible.

The

make

the whole

poet sings his sooth-

ing song above the darkness of the silent language

within: the silent language

is

not forgotten. In poetry

Language
the spoken

of the

poem

is

on which the words within

Hke a sounding ladder

are

drawn up

spoken language. Sadness

when he

69

and unspoken language can both be heard.

The rhythm
light of

Man

as a Totality in

also

into the

comes

to

man

has heard a perfect poem: from the depths

he has heard the sound of the whole of language,

spoken and unspoken, but he has not heard

all

it

actually speaking.

The language

of children seems not yet to have

been separated from the

language.

totality of

When

children speak, the whole of language seems to speak

only to sink back again as

spoken.

The whole

if

no word

at all

had been

of the silent language within

present in a child's words like a mother.

has difficulty in speaking because

its

The

is

child

words bear the

whole of language within themselves.

In love there

no separation between the

is

silent

language within and the spoken word. Nothing seems

to be separate

any longer; everything

always to have been whole. Never

guage within such a

terior

and

is

is

totality as in love in

exterior language are one.

and seems

the silent lan-

which

in-

The spoken word

movement of the silent language, a movedream which awakens the lover and sets
the whole dream into the wholeness of the day. And
just as the dream and the awakening are a unity, so
is

like a

ment

in a

too are silence

"When
more
lover.

that

and speech.

man

speaks to his beloved, she listens

to the silence

'Be

may

than to the spoken words of her

she seems to whisper. *Be silent,

hear thee.' " *
silent,'

*The World

of Silence.

Man and Language

70

IV
"However poor

may

it

be, every

language

to give everything," w^rote Leibnitz. "But, even

it is

is

able

though

possible to describe anything by circumlocution,

longwindedness destroys
speaks and

him who

detained too long.

It

is

because the

him who
mind is

up

in every

pleasure

all

listens;

for

like being held

room when being shown over a beautiful palace."

It is only when one is unacquainted with the whole
of a language

and

one often has no grasp of a

eign language as a whole

that

and longwindedness; but the

in "every

for-

one notices verbosity

totality

of language

room" and prevents one noticing

is

the pro-

lixity of the details.

Nietzsche

accused

Socrates

having led philosophy on

to

and

his

disciples

byways by the

of

intro-

duction of general ideas and universal concepts as

opposed

At

to intuitive, inspirational, poetic philosophy.

that time, however, general

ideas

and universal

concepts were not on their own, were not isolated

from

the whole of language as they are today.

whole
ideas

interior

The

language was audible in these general

and universal concepts. The

antithesis

between

the philosophy of general ideas and universal concepts

and

intuitive, poetic

philosophy only arose

the philosophy of general ideas broke

foundations.

Then

when

away from

its

general ideas and universal con-

cepts soon lost their vitality.

The madman no

longer

possesses

the

whole of

language: he sends the individual words away from

him, ordering them with a shout,

as

it

were

to re-

Language
cover for

he

him

is silent

in

as a Totality in

Man

the wholeness which he has

an unceasing

interior silence, as

71

Or

lost.

though

the wholeness of the interior silence were intended to

replace the wholeness of language.

Today language has hardly any

relationship with

the interior language or with silence.

know

that

it

are isolated

has lost

its

It

does not even

original wholeness.

Words

and specialized and becoming more and

more

attenuated.

reach

down

They have no depth; they do not

into the depths of the silent language.

The

They

are always

silent

language within no longer has any influence on

on the

surface, one-dimensional.

words; words are impregnated with the verbal noise

which

replaces the interior wholeness of language.

THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE

The physiognomy
people,

talking. It

of you,

of

language

is

apparent

when

whose language one does not understand, are

is

like a

heap of sounds piled up in front

and the people talking seem

to be

pushed

the edge of the heap, a heap of sounds that

stantly being piled

is

to

con-

up and constantly vanishing. At

the pile of sounds seems to prevent people com-

first

ing nearer to one another:

it

stands between them.

They seem gradually, however, to move

of the way and come closer together.
Regarded in

this purely external

the heap out

way, as a heap of

sounds, language seems to stand between people,

most

like

an enemy, thrown

by them. But through the

of the mass of sounds

over by the

at

spirit,

which

is

al-

them, not originated

man

takes possession

waiting to be taken

spirit.

In the case of animals, the mass of roaring sound

does not stand between them.

It is like

a physical con-

tinuation of the animals, like an organ formed in the

air,

only bellowing instead of merely moving, Hke the

other animal organs.

therefore nearly always

The

roaring of an animal

more

frightening.

seems to grow in the act of roaring; the bellowing

weirdly disquieting.

is

The animal
is

The
Words
self

and

exist

heard one

do not

yet they

moment and gone

emerge only

they

Language

Structure of

to

language both need the

73

They

exist.

vanish

again.

them a con-

to give

spirit

are

man himMan and

the next. Like

tinuing presence.
II

In

not to

languages,

ancient

the

Testament, there

them

let

is

go.

strenuous

in

especially
eflfort to

The nouns

human

not the depth of

silence,

an im-

human

silence.

Block

with block. These blocks are so powerful

would continue speaking

they

accord

is

below these blocks: the abyss of pre-

silence

collides

that

Old

are like solid blocks:

they represent security and certainty. There

mense

the

cling to words,

if

man

lost his

memory

of

their

of language.

nervous about approaching them.

own

Man

is

The words come

out and fetch him themselves.

These blocks

still

contain the power of the object

which they name. These massive substantives are

numinous; they have a

latent

magic of

their

own.

They almost inspire man with dread. Man approaches

them cautiously as if the thing described were following on behind. The substantive only really belongs to
man when it is activated by means of a predicate.
Only then

is

the substantive really inside

inside the world.

brought

home

the verb

man

to

"Man" and
man:

the

noun

is

humanized. With

himself assumes responsibility; the ob-

ject is delivered into his

to be strange

man and

"sea" and "house" are

hands and the noun ceases

and magical. Only when the subject

is

by the verb, however,

is

related to a definite object

Man and Language

74

the subject firmly established.

The

predicate and object seems to

come

trinity of subject,

an end and a

to

new unity brought into being.

The sentence subject, predicate and object
attempt to pave a way from the massive block

subject,

through the endless

acingly lurking object.

way

silence,

of the

towards the men-

kind of searching in the

from subject

of a sentence

an

is

the object exists, just as there

to predicate

is

and on

to

an element of search-

ing in every way.

In a sentence in ancient languages there

is

an

also

element of hesitation, as though the sentence were

nervous of moving forward at the normal speed.

seems

It

to turn back, listening out for criticism or agree-

ment.
In the writings of Jean Paul

though the reader were

an

in

it

sometimes

is

airship,

raised

as

high

above the path of the sentence, hovering over the

sentence below, illuminating

it

with the sheen of the

silver airship.

Dammerung
Schon

Doch

ist

senkte sich von oben,

alle

zuerst

Nahe

fern;

emporgehoben

Holden Lichts der Abendstern!

schwankt ins Ungewisse,
Nebel schleichen in die Hoh';
Schwarz vertiefte Fuister nisse
Wiederspiegelnd ruht der See.*

Alles

Here, too, subject, predicate and object do not

low one behind the

other. Everything

is

all

fol-

together,

up above, hovering over the road below. The twilight

*

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

The
of the

poem

world.

It

is

Structure of Language

down on all
down but it stays

the twilight of the

sinks

sinks

75

The

above.

and the distance near. The way

distant

nearness

is

always

at journey's end.

Ill

The
longer

substantive

today; man no
noun as such; it is
very outset, drawn into the mo-

is

the

reveres

down

leveled

individual

verbalized from the

tion of activity even before a verb has been

to

The

it.

longer

is

by

it:

the

appended

moment;

only valid for a

conditioned

conditions
It

verb

it

is

no

and no longer

subject

both are together by pure accident.

has been said that the greatest and real power

of language resides in the verb. Today, subject, verb

and

object are

together.

all

That

powerless; they are

why

is

and Unicef and

object but are merely guides for the

sentence

is

shriveled

words

as

up

Nato

words which

on,

so

all

there exist such

refer to no
memory. The

dominated not by words, subject or verb,

but by an amalgam of vowels and consonants.

IV
In long sentences
lasso,

man

catches things as

In the long sentence there

prolixity

where

if

with a

bringing them into the curve of the sentence.

and

is

a wonderful unity of

and nearness. No-

conciseness, distance

else are

words so

at

home,

so close to

one an-

other as in the long sentence where they stretch themselves

out and feel secure and comfortable. In the

long sentence language

communication.

What

it

is

furthest

away from mere

has to communicate

is

com-

Man and Language

76

Man

municated incidentally.

himself

possessed

less

is

by expediency; he confronts things more independently thanks to the sovereignty of language. In the

long sentence the mind has time to look around:

there

is

a pondering quality in the long sentence

which

in the time

there

a reference to the time during

is

object

came

again.

The age

less

into being:
in

which the

comes into being

it

all

over

which men wrote long periods was

subjective than our age.

jerky

and

gathered into the long sentence

is

Such sentences are not

aggressive. They have

move towards a limited objective. Such
show the mind struggling out of the vague

and chopped up and

breadth and
sentences

and undefined

into the realm of clarity

Today language

and

definition.

hard and indiscreet. Words are

is

thrown out abruptly; the sentence no longer

anything; there
is

there at once

is

no time

and

though by accident.

as

leads to

in the sentence; everything

It is as if

the

mind had achieved

ject

not by means of language but by something

its

language without time

is

relationship with the ob-

finished.

Today

no longer any long exploratory paths

in

else.

there are

language;

no nourishing bushes by the wayside, only asphalt

commonplaces.

And

ment, the sentence

although
is

it

is

everywhere

lacking in moveat once.

The

old

reverence and the old searching are gone.

God

said:

spoken by
first

"Do

man

hear this!" In the imperative

this,

there

commandment

to

is

always a reflection of God's

man;

pause after the word of

there

is

always a slight

command

in

which man not

The

Structure of

Language

77

only waits for the order to be carried out but in which

he also waits expectantly for something. Everything

seems to stop for a moment.

which

It

moment in
commandment

the

is

a reflection of that first divine

dim

appears: but only a

because

reflection,

comes

it

memory.
The imperative is almost a sacred form of language. Just because of that it is the form that has
been most drastically secularized. Today the imperaup from the deepest

tive

depths'^^Df the

who

belongs to the imperious dictator

no pause between the command and

All

of the

trace

mandment

memory

of the

permits

execution.

its

com-

divine

first

has been destroyed.

VI
In Chinese or Egyptian picture-writing

it

is

diffi-

move on from one word

cult for the sentence to

to

the next since each successive picture holds the attention of the eye

and the mind. Words are delimited not

only by sound but also by the lines of the picture.

The eye
ter. The

slips

picture,

since

picture.

The

zontal.

more

away from

easily

speaker as well as the reader

the spoken
vertical

special act

is

needed

one object and move on

Humboldt thought

word

stressed

is

is

the abstract
is

also

tied

the

to

more than the

hori-

to leave the picture of

to the next.

that picture-writing

drance to language. "It

let-

held up by the

is

was a hin-

obvious that by suggesting

the visual appearance of the object, picture-writing

must obstruct the

picture

is

activity of language.

imposed on a written character

tarily represses that

which

it is

When
it

the

involun-

intended to represent,

Man and Language

78

the word." But in a picture-conscious world such as

the Chinese or Egyptian, picture and object are not

opposed

to

one another: the pictures of the objects are

themselves directly in the words and the words do

make

not need to

a long journey to reach them.

words themselves must have the power

image of the
is

right:

it

to

object to

which they

possible

to create the

Humboldt

refer.

"Language requires concreteness, but

words which are held

fast

It is

now:

impossible, however, to return to picture-writing

fastens

by sound." That

only in a world where everything

is

is

still

concretely pictorial so that words refer automatically

to the corresponding

named

waiting to be

image of the

which

object,

is

in sound.

Picture-writing and alphabetic writing both have

duced by the

picture,

phabetic writing

words on

man

be

se-

by the magic of the object;

al-

picture-writing tempts

their dangers:

their

may tempt him

own, unrelated

to

to

maneuver with

to objects.

VII

"The man

fetched the spear"

is

lows in the language of a Negro

left

When

great deal

the action
propriate.

only

is
is

fol-

"The man

the house; reached for the spear and

again."

The

expressed as
tribe:

went back

a savage decides to fetch a spear a

involved and the involved

way

expressed in his language

"The man fetched the

word one really hears

spear"
is

is

in

which

quite ap-

is

"spear":

abstract.

"man"

and "fetched" are almost inaudible. In the language

of these black

men

think what he

is

there

is

time, time for

man

to

going to do with the spear. There

The
is

Structure of

Language

man and

a distance between the

of the tension between Negroes

man

to the fact that primitive

79

the spear. Part

and Europeans

is

are

thrown

him he

at

them and can no longer

due

used to approaching

things slowly, through the barrier of language.

objects

is

When

is

overwhelmed by

find his

way about them

and about himself.

VIII

The

language change but

details of a

its

mental structure remains the same, like the

which has continuity but

minor ways. Language

is

also subject to

is

fundaspirit

change in

not subject to a process of

continuous change but to one of changing continuity.

Language helps the human

tial

spirit to preserve its essen-

continuity.

Language changes of

own accord as well as

human mind. Something

its

under the influence of the

quite original and fundamental enters into language

from time

to time, producing changes.

active in a

way

mentally
boldt.

that

clearly evident

this angle

"Language

is

though funda-

Wilhelm von Hum-

wrote

inexplicable,"

"Seen from

activity

is

it

is

not a product of

but an involuntary emanation of the

spirit."

Language adapts itself almost imperceptibly to the

changes which take place in the history of the hu-

man

mind. But the mind of the individual human

being can also undergo a sudden and violent change

and when that happens,

language

fails

to follow

as in the case of St. Paul,

The

suit.

discrepancy between

the change that takes place in the spirit

to express the

change

may

and

its ability

be so great that language

Man and Language

80

does not dare to follow

change occurs,

by a

articulate cry or

suit.

closely

Are the changes

intactness?
if

the

shows

that occur in language not an at-

wholeness and

Would language have any

history at all

the story of Creation,

had not taken

creating history everywhere, even

all else,

And may

language.

in

in-

spirit.

to a state of original

first story,

place before

mere

humility of lan-

a great spiritual crisis

language belongs to the

tempt to return

a great spiritual

The

silence.

guage in the presence of

how

When

often expressed by a

is

it

which take place

not the sudden mutations

Nature come from a sudden

in

yearning of the limited creature for Wholeness? Does

the limited nature in an animal suddenly

the

Whole which

strive,

lies

beyond

leaping out beyond

of a mutation

its

itself,

own

to attain

remember

bounds, and
it

by means

.f^

IX

"Who

is

able

to

trace

back the expressions for

physical things like water, air, earth,

mal, herb, grass, to their

Grimm. Words

German

are divorced

roots today; they

no longer

from

live

fire,

bird, ani-

roots?" asked Jakob

their etymological

from

their roots.

They

merely brush past one another, or slide into one another.

Heidegger attempts

to understand the true

mean-

ing of words by tracing them to their etymological

roots.

For example, etymologically, the Greek word

for truth, aletheia,

means the

revealed, the unhidden.

Like an archaeologist, Heidegger digs

roots of

words

down

to the

in an attempt to revive their original

The

Structure of

Language

81

and fundamental meaning. To me, however,

that

what

is

expressed by the root of a

word

seems

it

is

merely

word dreaming of itself. Heidegger only lures the

word into new associations, false associations from
its own past. It does not acquire a new strength and
solidity because of these. Words acquire strength and
the

solidity

by belonging above

word and

word's past, that

its

all

to the object.

When

object are united in a powerful present, the

present.

to discover

is, its

There
its

is

past.

etymology,

no need

to

is

drag

contained within
it

up by

its

roots

THE MULTIPLICITY OF LANGUAGES

The

action of the Creator by

was so tremendous

created

would not have been

Man

soluteness of the action.

whole

single

language

of

all

it.

One

attempts to absorb the

fullness of that action in the breadth of the

"The sum

multiplicity of languages.

knowable

them

original
is

able to contain

language would have been exploded by the ab-

sole

of

which language was

that

lies

between

all

what

is

all," wrote Wilhelm von Humboldt. "The

harmony between man and the world which

the basis of the possibility of

truth,

total of

languages and independently

all

knowledge of the

being regained progressively and step by

is

step."

Truth

is

not the sum-total of the knowledge con-

tained in the various languages. Truth

Unity and

its

fullness

languages. Truth

is

is

shared by

so rich that

guages in which to express

itself,

it

is

all

needs

but the

a primary

the various

many lansum of all

the various languages does not produce Truth.

At

the

same time, Jacob of Batnae

was right

in

(circa 500

A.D.)

questioning whether the confusion of

languages was not rather a bountiful gift of grace

than a punishment.
It

may seem

to be,

but

it is

82

not the case that Truth

The
is

Multiplicity of

Languages

83

relativized because various languages express vari-

ous aspects of an object. In every language the object

is

conditioned by the whole organism and pattern

within which the language has

word

is

vidual

related

it is

total

a part. It

is

its

The single
The indi-

being.

the whole organism.

the

of

aspect

through the

to

object

truth

acquires

true that each language reveals only

one aspect of the object but

one aspect receives

this

from the whole of the language more than

within

and

in

organism of the language of which

it

contains

the part becomes a whole in and through

itself:

the language as a totality.

Heidegger

man word wahr

Norse

varar,

(Latin versus)

is

meaning vow (Var

oaths) and the

alty.

Truth

traces the concept of

to the

Greek

which means the unhidden. But the Ger-

aletheia

Old High German

Old

related to the
is

the goddess of

vara,

meaning

loy-

These etymological relationships give Truth quite

a different meaning from that contained in the Greek

aletheia,

not

the unhidden.

us any

tell

The Greek

more about

Truth does

for

the nature of

Truth than

does the concept of "loyalty" contained in the Old

Norse.

The

idea of truth as the "unhidden"

of truth only in Greek.

to the individual

and on

its

When
to

one

to

that

which

is

full

of a language gives
it is

lacking in

itself

own.

remember

possible

word

The whole

is

speaking one language

it

is

that other languages exist at

difficult
all.

It

is

speak various languages without losing

one's personal identity only because the language one

is

speaking at the

moment seems

possible to speak. If this

the only one

were not so the person

it

is

who

Man and Language

84

many languages would be split into as

many parts as the number of languages he knows.
The Moassu islanders use different sets of numcan speak

bers according to
spirits,

whether they are counting people,

animals, or trees.

The

object in question de-

termines the kind of word used.

important than the number.

press

oneself

But thanks

to

abstractly
its

in

It

this

The
is

object

is

more

impossible to ex-

kind

of

language.

greater degree of concreteness,

it

is

as closely related to the essential nature of things as

the

more highly "developed" languages

straction.

are by

ab-

HIGH GERMAN AND DIALECT

Hi gh German
and

cepts

used today to express general con-

is

relationships. Dialect

used to express more

is

The general now takes

High German that there is not
the private and familiar. High

personal and familiar things.

up

much

so

space in

much room left for

German is no longer
own.

its

man
and

related to dialect. It stands

on

has acquired inflationary proportions. But

can only endure a certain degree of the general

universal, even

It is

when

it

is

good and

true.

possible for a wonderful relationship to exist

between
s on

It

dialect

and the standard language. The

who comes

world of

to

dialect

High German from

succumbs much

les^s

ized, stereotyped routine than those

to

its

standard-

who have

spoken High German^ and nothing

per-

the homely

else.

always

For those

who come to High German from dialect, High German is always different and distinct and they themselves acquire new strength by engaging with it.
Today
It

is

dialect

is

overwhelmed by High German.

hardly more than a merely quaint appendage

to the standard, written language, living as

in a cellar

on

its

own.

And

dialect, the private is ceasing to

language. Dialect

is

hemmed
85

it

were

with the displacement of

have any validity in

in, cut off,

out of con-

Man and Language

S6
tact

with the larger

air of the

standard language. This

highly dangerous because the general and the pub-

is

should flow from the particular and the private.

lic

Today

the general

and the public are primary and

the particular and the private are

mere

relics

of the

past that have not yet been generalized.

Often when
Shakespeare
result

is

do not understand a passage in

translate

it

Alemannic. But the

into

me, not Shakespeare any longer. Dialec t only

expresses the personal an d the p rivate. In the Ale-

mannic poems

of Johann Peter Hebel

things that raise

man

above the

all

the general

level of the

familiar daily round are lacking, except in

three poems. But one

is

merely

two or

not aware that they are miss-

ing because the familiar, everyday things are so clear

and

solid.

One

senses that this clarity

and

solidity are

due

to

the unseen presence of the world of the general, of

which the familiar everyday things have knowledge.

They

are not in fact isolated in a

own, although there

is

no

little

world on their

explicit reference

to the

wider world above them. Hebel did not, however,

low himself

to

al-

be tempted by his power of creating the

world of the familiar and everyday

the prose of the Schatz\dstlein,

to use dialect in

That he did not use

the dialect of which he was such a master in this

work is also a token of his greatness. His story of

"The Unexpected Reunion," for example, is one of
the most beautiful in the German language. Death
and Love, the moment and eternity, fate and the
endurance of

fate are a perfect unity in this story, shin-

ing with the radiance of the

first

things. In dialect.

High German and

87

Dialect

however, the story would have fallen from

height to the level of the private anecdote.
three people

would

listen to the dialect

this lofty

Two

speaker

ing the story in a lamp-lit corner, whereas, in

German, everyone can hear

self.

it,

or

tell-

High

including language

it-

THE DESTRUCTION OF LANGUAGE

In a world in which language

happens when

man

is still

intact,

and the object meet.

braces the object with his mind, so that the

say

what the

object

so that

is,

He

truth of the object.

it

embraces

may
it

something

Man

em-

mind may

express the

with his

soul,

may give life and warmth to the truth

of the object. The mind gives truth and warmth to
the pure sound of the word. But when man ceases to
that the soul

have a true meeting with

takes place; there

mind nor

spirit

is

enters into the

mindless and soulless;

into

mere verbal

lasting

objects,

no

no true encounter

it

noise.

mumble which

special
at all.

event

Neither

word; the word

is

degenerates into pure sound,

Language becomes an
exists

before

man

ever-

begins to

speak and continues after he has ceased.

One
longer

verbal noise arises

come from

dissolved in a universal

Language

ceases

to the silence in

from another. Words no

silence. Silence

to

contain anything corresponding

man, which

sleep,

in

his

death.

share

in

the

silent

and words are both

and continuous mumbling.

Language

is

is

in his body, in his

no longer able

nature of man,

because

it

to

no

longer comes from silence.

There

is

no

silence in the

88

world of verbal noise.

The

Man

mute, but never

is

space but

all

fill

Destruction of Language

spirit.

Verbal noise seems to

man

only on the purely physical

level.

Man

come
come

the servant of verbal noise.

the lord of language, but he has be-

is

mere

acoustic

Language

things.

no longer the
yet always

to

which

different

is

be-

men and
added

is

to

in a state of constant motion

on the same

movement

typical

Language has

accompaniment

now^ only the noise of things,

is

utterly

things. Verbal noise

and

mind and

does not touch the

it

touches

It

silent.

89

spot. It has the stereo-

of the mindless

and the mad.

It

has no before and after, no here and there, no history.

Everything

is

thing and nothing:

mixed up
it

in verbal noise, every-

and

creates a deceptive

illusory

relationship between things.

There
noise

tween

is

no

and no Thou in verbal

There

anticonversational.

is

and Thou.

When

it

is

tries

The

I is

alone. All the basic categories of

abolished.

man

The

certainty

inclines to

alone and yet not

human

existence are

of self-identification

which

formerly received from his free embrace of lanreplaced by the merely external duration of

guage,

is

verbal

noise.

The

inner,

spiritual

continuity

placed by a purely external continuity.

on the radio
tifiable
is

be-

to extricate itself

from the all-confounding mixture, the

egotism and dictatorship.

noise. Verbal

no separation

to

make

certain that he

is

is

re-

Man

switches

still

an iden-

person; even the certainty of self-identification

mechanized.

The language
thing.

than

"The

all

of verbal noise

earth gives

is

pervious to every-

man more

the books, because

it

self-knowledge

offers resistance to

him

Man and Language

90

and

it

that

man

only in conflict with forces outside himself

is

finds the

way

force. It

Man

is

no longer a

is

resisting

pervious to everything, far too pervious.

Negro

pervious too: he absorbs

is

Antoine

to himself," writes

de Saint Exupery. Language

sculpture and

the animal and plant forms of the ninth-century Irish

Codex Cenanensis, Toulouse-Lautrec and Bavarian

and the moderns, all mixed up

folk art, Carpaccio

together.

Man

spiritual

continuity.

absorbs everything because he has

He

no

no longer committed by

is

anything that comes to him. Everything merely appears and disappears in the verbal noise.

has been said that

It

Holderiin today than

the only difference

is

it

was

it

that

is

easier

to

understand

No,
more pervious to

in the age of Goethe.

we

are

him as we are to everything else. The frontier that

made it impossible for men to understand Holderiin
was

a sign

frontier

and symbol of man.

symbolical frontier.

lost that

It is

The

no gain

have

to

things beyond that

were not without influence on man, however,

for they belonged to the objective

on him

indirectly

world which acted

and unbeknown

Emil Brunner has

translated into the language of our

Barth has also said that

it

is

so intense today that

truth of the Gospel

him.

if

it

ought to be

own modern

age.

should be translated into

the language of the Press. But the

language

to

said that the Gospel

it

power of

secular

would drown the

were translated into "the

language of the modern age." The words of the

Gospel would become part of the universal verbal
noise;

they would seem a mere modulation of the

verbal noise

and no attention would be paid

to

them

The

Destruction of Language

91

as they appeared only to disappear again.

The lanThe "lan-

guage of the Gospel would

guage of the age" would not be redeemed,
be dissolved.

seems

capable

assimilating

of

anything,

for

even

it

the

words of the Gospel. The language of the Gospel

can preserve

its

true nature today

more than ever

before only by remaining wholly different, by changing

man

through the impact on him of the wholly

magic of the wholly

ferent, the
It

would be wrong

infect

to believe that verbal noise will

language altogether. There are possible

real

resources

still

available

which may prevent the com-

language.

Some languages are

may be

plete

destruction

more

infected by verbal noise than others. It

that the danger

of

may become more

particular language

and

sometimes seems,

still exists

unsullied,

is

guage

evident in one

this will act as a

others. It

that

dif-

different.

too, as

warning

to

though language

though deeply buried in a

silence

deeper than the silence of man. Unsullied lanstill

exists in a

menacing

silence

and above

it is

the verbal noise, a single loud muteness.

Nicht vermogen
Die Himmlischen alles. Namlich es reichen
Die Sterblichen eh' in den Abgrund. Also wondet
Mit diesen. Lang ist
Die Zeit, es ereignet sich aber
Das Wahre.*

*Johann C.

F. Holderlin.

es sich

WORDS AND OBJECTS

In the language of verbal noise words are merely

symbols indicating that an object

make some
all.

By

an object by name he intimates

Creator that he has received

answer

at

man must

response to the fact that objects exist at

calling

language

the

flitting past:

is

nature of the object hardly matters. But

all.

Human

to the Creator.

it.

That

language

Language

to the

is

why man

is

above

has

all

an

the inventory of

is

Creation.

But the poet does more than answer.

intimates that he has clearly seen

He

not only

what the Creator

created; he also sends the objects back to the Creator

on the wings of
to

things.

The

poetry. Poetry gives a soaring quality

true

rhythm of

bringing the object to

sending

it

winging back

poem

man and

the

at

consists

in

same time

to the Creator.

Objects themselves help words to embrace them.

There

is

a surplus in the object exceeding

necessary for the thing to be as

it is.

what

the object waits to meet the surplus in the word.

impels the object to the word. There

is

This surplus in

is

It

a transcendent

element in every word, expressing more than the pure

f actuality

of the object.
92

Words and

93

Objects

II

In order that a

word may embrace an

object there

man and the object.

place. When man and

must be an encounter between

Something

definite

must take

the object meet in a true encounter, both are lifted

above the level of ordinary existence. For a

man and
to the
is

the object exist

on

their

beginning of Creation. Today, however, there

no meeting between man and the

only meet other objects.

object;

moment

own. They return

Man

he scarcely touches

is
it

object. Objects

merely grazed by the

at

all.

The word

is

merely a sign that the object has been supplied to

The encounter is purely mechanical.

Some poets are only successful with their first book
of poems. The encounter with objects is still a reality
him.

and language echoes the original truth of the

perience.

When

medium

of

the

substance of poetry enters

language

for

the

language

time,

first

ex-

the

trembles from the impact. But often in the very next

book of poems the words arrive before the

they search for the object.

Having

lost the

object;

original

substance of poetry they can only offer a reminder of

it.

The

Fiji

islanders

word for two

Ten coconuts are not
two. They are something

use a different

coconuts than for ten coconuts.

simply eight coconuts plus

quite different.
object

is

The encounter between man and

so intense that the encounter with

nuts differs from the encounter with ten.

two

the

coco-

Number

expresses a difference in quality as well as in quantity.

The change

in the

number

affects the

nature of

Man and Language

94

word

the encounter, hence a special

from man

islander looks

is

used.

The

to the object, that

Fiji

from

is,

himself to the two coconuts, not from object to object,

that

not from the two coconuts to the ten; the

is,

encounter with the object

Ewe

In the

is

the thing that matters.

language there are thirty-three

differ-

ent words for thirty-three different kinds of walking.

The

word

Javanese have a special

for ten

different

kinds of standing and twenty different kinds of

ting.

The world

particular situation not in the extensity of

ations.

and

Each

different variation of

significant

possible.

The

in

not at

all

itself

walking

many

situ-

so valid

is

no other kind seems

that

only thing that

kind of language

sit-

experienced in the intensity of a

is

is

undeveloped in that

is its flexibility. Its

essential nature is

undeveloped.

In Tibetan three different words are used accord-

speaking to an equal, a servant,

ing to whether one

is

or a superior. "If

am

how he

is,

talking about myself

my

servant
'lag.'

" *

hand

The

asking a person of high rank

body

call his

'cu

call

zu' but

the body

me

'ciag' but to

is

if I

'cu.'

his

am only
To the
hand

is

individual encounters are so intensive

that every difference

is

expressed by a different word.

In Greek two people or two things were

felt

to

represent something quite distinct from anything else,

so they

were given a

special form,

some native African languages too

Dual number. In
a special

form

is

accorded to certain multiples, for example, sixes or

sevens.

There

is

felt to

nificant about the

be something peculiarly

meeting of

* Giuseppe Tucci, T<!ach

six or

sig-

seven people or

Lhasa und wetter.

Words and Objects

things so a special

word

is

95

used to describe such a

meeting.

Some African languages

only have the present tense.

Future and past are simply the non-present and are

not differentiated from one another.

encounter with the object

possible to imagine

is

The immediate

so powerful that

it is

any tense but the present

im-

as hav-

ing independent validity.

On

the

hand, a word formation

other

"blooming nonsense"

is

possible only

such as

when word and

object have ceased to be closely related to one another.

Only then can "blooming" be taken away from the

flower to which it belongs and transferred to "nonsense."
I

do not mean that our more dynamic languages

should return to the more

static

condition of primi-

do mean, however, that we should

tive languages. I

not use our dynamic languages to get rid of things

come

before they have

into contact with us

at

all.

The encounter with the object should be more powerful than the dynamism of language which tends to
ignore the object altogether. The dynamism should
not be all-important.

It

should only be the means

leading to the encounter with the object, as in this

poem by Georg

Trakl:
Ver\ldrter Herbst

Gewaltig endet so das Jahr

Mit goldnem Wein und Frucht der Garten.
Rund schweigen Walder wunderbar

Und
Da

sind des

sagt der

Einsamen Gefahrten.

Landmann: Es
und

Ihr Abendglocken lang

ist

gut.

leise


Man and Language

96

Gebt noch zum Ende frohen Mut.

Ein Vogelzug griisst auf der Reise.
Es

der Liebe milde Zeit,

ist

Im Kahn den blauen Fluss hinunter

Wie schon sich Bild an Bildchen reiht
Das geht in Ruh und Schweigen unter.
In spite of the mobility of the language, in spite of
the images

autumn
of all

is

which come and go

in

clearly present in this

autumns sojourns

in this

directions, the

all

poem. The autumn

poem.

existed be-

It

autumn and will sing

its way through all the autumns to come, long after
the earth itself has gone. The object, in this case,
autumn, exists by means of words. When the word is
the object, the word seems like a blessed overflow:
the object exists but through the word it exists all
fore the creation of any earthly

over again. In this overflow, language

therefore beautiful.

Whenever

pressing the object completely,

and

has lost

The
and

The yearning

sad.

is

word and

is

is

free

from
and

word

succeeds in ex-

man

is

both happy

Wholeness that

man

brought into existence by the poem,

same time

it is

at the source

from which

object both came; the darkness of the be-

ginning and the

is

it

present in language.

object

at the

for the

released

is

the necessity of embracing the object:

clarity of the present are a unity. It

like the mosaics in the portico of

St.

Mark's in

Venice. Noah's Ark, the Flood, the people and ani-

mals in the Flood and in the Ark, are

all

there as

if

they were really there at this very moment, and yet

the gold behind the figures reflects the light of the

beginning in

which the Flood and the Ark

first

Words and

97

Objects

existed, in the radiance of the gold the

beginning and

what

the present are connected and, because of this,

happened once

will never cease to happen.

Ill
It is

The
it

language that

first

gives existence to things.

grows and increases through the word;

object

therefore waits for the word. Objects

competition

crowd in on

named by him. There is a

among them to be noticed and named

man, clamoring

be

to

by man.

Words themselves need

and protected by

objects.

objects. They are sustained

The word that is bound up

with a particular object cannot

Words

be taken away

easily

by another word and attached

another

to

by

exist because they are held fast

whole of language
language even

exists

when

it

and
is

man

object.

objects.

The

in possession of

is

not being spoken because

the objects continue to speak in the silence.

In the Old Testament the words are absorbed by

The

the objects.

so directly that

objects themselves speak to us

it

be able to speak without words.

mere

protective cloaks

away by
naked.

is

as

The words

are often

and sometimes they are stripped

the winds of

It

and

seems as though they might well

God and we

see the object

though the encounter between word

The words

and

object

still

quivering from their collision with the objects.

had only

just

taken place.

Without words man would not be able

to

endure

the divine awfulness of things and happenings.

soften the impact

and nowhere

is

are

They

the kindly gift of

language so evident as here, in the Old Testament.

Man and Language

98

Behind the words one

menacing

senses the

solitari-

God which have

ness of the things created by

not

yet been reached by words.

In the beginning

man was

He

awe-struck by the im-

move
away from the object into abstraction. There are words
in the Old Testament which are like things transformed into words, which are waiting to become mere
things again, just as the stone birds on cathedral
mediate object.

did not trust himself to

walls seem to be waiting to break through the stone

and

fly

out into the

The more

air.

directly

from the primacy of

that for a

moment

language

from

arises

more

silence, the

silence,

possible

it

is

at least the state of incipience will

be created in which word and thing are absolutely

one. There

is

perhaps in intuition (which Bergson

called "the deep I") a reflection of the perfect unity

of

word and

object.

As soon

as

man

to clarify his intuition he creates a

and

object

which can only be

tries,

however,

gap between word

filled

by the

spirit of

truth.

Probably the word often does not embrace the whole

of the object, but only part of
arise:

through love that which

made

the

it,

is

so that love

may

merely a part

is

whole. But where word and object are

a unity, love does not need only to come and heal the

breach between them;

The word which

it

comes

the object can also point the

word and

object towards

object free to

move.

as love entire.

does not embrace the whole of

way

to a future unity of

which the word

leaves the

Words and

99

Objects

IV
Someone wrote

to

me

to say that if the object

were

wholly contained in the word, merely saying the word

"fire"

would burn

"fire"

is

brightly,

but

Nowhen

you can even

feel it

and glows with

word

burning

burning on your tongue,

a flame that has

no power

it

shines

to destroy.

burns nothing and burns eternally. Lan-

fire

guage

the

fire

does not actually burn your tongue:

it

The

one's tongue.

spoken in a poem you can see the

turns the fire into a

first

of language,

it

fire.

Before the arrival

was merely something burning, some-

thing with power to destroy man, threatening and

overpowering him (hence the

insane

guage,
is

who

fire is

tamed,

it

glows in the

kindled by the "F"; in the "i"

roundish shape and in the

little.

fire is

of fire

effect

on the

Through lanword "fire." It

lack the logos of language).

By means

of the

it

spreads out in a

final "re"

word

"fire" the

it

falls

back a

burning of the

brought under control. The menacing magic

continues to burn behind the word, under the "fire."

Words

are without their objects today

and a poem

cannot be explained by reference to the objects which

are mentioned in

it;

other words have to be used

to explain the content of the

poem. The modern poet

hardly ever has possession of the object: he only possesses the

word. In Kafka there

the object

may

is still

be presumed to

space in the echo of which

it is

a space in

exist:

which

a subterranean

almost possible to hear

Man and Language

100

people speaking and things moving. At the beginning

of Creation things existed without words: today
exist

The

world of things, firmly related to

external

words, preserves words for

already lost them.
half.

The

just as

It

man when

external world of things protects language,

man would

so,

If this

never stop talking, for fear

of losing the gift of language.

taken away from the word,

flitting

he himself has

watches over words on his be-

language protects the external world.

were not

flits

words

without things.

it

When

the object

is

becomes a mere token,

swiftly by, replaceable by anything else that

swiftly by.

When
back on

the object
itself

is

divorced from the word,

and becomes

as

it falls

wishes to be, not

it

as man intends it to be. The objects which have become divorced from human language, now speak
through themselves, and grow increasingly since they
are no longer held in check by the word and its controlling and restraining power.

The

reason

why

things like factories or cities attain

such exorbitant proportions nowadays

is

that

they

are beyond the control of language. In a factory, the

walls of the

room but

machine rooms are not

like doors

rooms. In the vast

which lead

like the

to

ends of

more and more

new cities the whole development

human control. In his bewilder-

seems to be beyond

ment man
stones,

tries to

keep up with the movement of the

and he sometimes

tries

to

show, with cars

in the streets and airplanes above them, that he can

move even more

rapidly than the stones.

America and Russia: man

lacks the

words

to de-

Words and
scribe the nature of these

101

Objects

two

colossi

and that

why

is

They

they are both continually increasing in size.

speak

the

in

There

is

language

of

expansion.

quantitative

a super-human and super-physical element in

their expansion;

the

Tremendum

of the divine has

been replaced by the pseudo-Tremendum of the

colos-

sal.

This

is

the revolt of the real masses, the revolt of

things no longer protected by language. This

menacing

the

is

men but of the things which

by human language.

revolt not of

have not been reached

VI
Words embrace
by

objects.

Man

looked

self

at

objects but they also are

by them. They look

Language

fore he looks at them.

the questioning gaze of things.

things,

man

his answer,

embraced

not only looks at things; he

ceases to be

man

is

at

him

him-

is

be-

first,

man's response

When

to

he answers

an eternal questioner. With

gently closes the questioning eyes of

things.

"Asking questions

is

Heidegger. Questioning

and answering

is

is

also

the piety of

no longer responds
it

the piety of thinking," wrote

the piety of things

man. Today, language

to the questioning

gaze of things;

only asks questions. Today, even affirmations are

merely questions held in abeyance,

^n

the questioning gaze of things there

flection of the eyes of

respect, things stand

on His

is

a re-

God, questioning man. In

proxy for God, questioning

this

man

behalf.

The Logos which

is

in the world, in the object.

Man and Language

102
helps
in

man to think as well

own mind. The

his

Though subject to him,

helps him to think.

as the logos

with

him.

with him. The object

is

it

which he has

thinks

object

VII

Man

embraces the object with his mind and, as

he embraces

it,

he names

nature of the object

Bohme it was
who was a learned
Jacob

is

it;

and

said by his biographer

doctor, that he,

ways been able by a kind of

discern the correct

something of the very

imparted to the name. "Of

friend,

Bohme, had

al-

spiritual clairvoyance to

and appropriate name of

things,

such as plants, from the wrong names which might

have been given to him intentionally or in

However one
the

that

tries to

explain this story,

names of things

are

related

error.

it

is

certain

much more

deeply and fundamentally to their intrinsic qualities

than is usually assumed." *

The

nature of the object becomes part of the very

texture of the word.

word

The

sound, the

are the object's face.

which the nature of the

They

is why it is wrong to alter

word on grounds of expediency.

whom

Cratylus,

nature,

and

that

you

on

the spelling of a

see here, Socrates, says that every-

name of
a name is

its

own, which comes by

not whatever people

a thing by agreement, just a piece of their

applied to the thing, but that there

*G. H.

of the

object has been impressed.

That

thing has a right

letters

are the relief

is

Schubert, History of the Soul.

own

call

voice

a kind of inherent

Words and Objects

which

correctness in names,

103

the same for

is

all

men

both Greeks and barbarians,*

Something of the object

when he

therefore

because something of

What

the reduction of language

is

which

to pure sound: a reduction

of a universal reduction
today. It

draining

They
sive

are

of

the substance from

all

is

only a

symptom

human phenomena

all

though some central authority were

as

is
oflf

related to the object

is

contained in the word.

is

it

frightening

is

taken into the word and

is

man

speaks

succumbing

all

to the

human phenomena.

same kind of progres-

impoverishment.
VIII

The way

which an object

in

by what Friso Melzer

The

language.

when

the

is

named

the "heart

calls

is

is

created,

long as the people allow

decision.

is

moment
when the

The

and

it

is

of eternity for the

heart and soul of

will

to be

it

born

and outer world of a people

inner

language of a people

first

determined

heart and soul of a language

brought before God. The

the language

is

and soul" of

remain such so

determined by that

heart and soul of a language

is

present everywhere but impossible to grasp and com-

prehend.

^o

Though

it is

near to every word,

it is

nearer

some than others and not completely in any one.

In Greek the word for month is maen or that which

measures (moon comes from the same root), but in

Latin

month
The

mensis.

is

luna or that which shines as well as

description

is

cause in one language the

* Plato, Cratylus.

not entirely relative be-

moon

is

that

which meas-

Man and Language

104

and in another that which

ures

not

Roman

shines.

"maen": the

expressive than

less

"Luna"

spirit

is

of the

order and of the Latin language determined

moon

should be that which shines, but since

this quality of

shining was related to the whole order

that the

of things and words, the shining of the

moon

shares

in everything that happens within the whole order

and "luna," the shining one,

that

on everything under
is,

also has

knowledge of

which measures. "Luna," the shining one, beams

that

including the place where

it,

it

which measures. But "maen," that which

measures, also measures the shining

thus that which shines

measures.

No word

is

moonbeams and

also present in that

is

poor and meager that

which
is

de-

termined by the heart and soul of a language and

The

of a whole order of being.

language, which nourishes

heart and soul of

words, must be pre-

all

served in order that the individual

its

word may

retain

true nature.
If

the heart of the language

is

sound, the word

"interior" will suggest the interior of the soul or the

interior of a cathedral,

and the two meanings

merge

The word

into one another.

the "vagina"
corrupted,

when

and

will

will only suggest

the heart of the language has been

suggests

"interior"

anything vague,

dark and roomlike.

Anyone who suddenly

him on a plain is

front of

sees a

rock towering up in

frightened by the solitariness

of the rock in the midst of the plain

above

it,

but

it

will not occur to

him, as

and the sky

it

will to the

psychoanalyst, to think of the towering rock as the

phallus.

Love impels him

to

stay with the solitary

Words and
rock and not

let his

105

Objects

mind wander

to extraneous as-

sociations.
It

appears that the uppermost meaning of the words

in this case, "the interior of the soul"

and the "tower-

ing rock" of solitude are abundantly clear so that the

may share in this brightThe dark strata aspire to the bright stratum of
own accord. But psychoanalysis makes the dark

lower strata of the words

ness.

their

lower strata

artificially

bright and darkens the upper

strata.

When
when

the dove of Aphrodite had almost triumphed,

there

was

a danger that she

dove, the dove of

the

Holy

Spirit. It

God
was

as

might become the

climbed higher and became

though the dove that accom-

panied Aphrodite had been absorbed into the brightness

where the dove of the Holy

and

as

though

it

Spirit has

had only been waiting

its

being,

to be there.

LANGUAGE AND ACTION

The word

that

is

still

and above the word

intact contains a surplus over

which comes from

itself

its

divine origin. This surplus strives to be realized in

In the action that comes from such words,

action.

there

which

a fullness

is

The

tarian tokens.

and

creative

action

is

it

coming from;

it

moves

It

always

hesitantly,

derives from, since

it

the word from which

related to

utili-

more spontaneous, more

is

turning back to the word

more

not contained in the ac-

yet held fast by the surplus.

is

knows where

is

from words which are mere

tion that derives

it

it

has arisen

than to the action or event that proceeds from

The

action

is

is

it.

encompassed by the surplus in the word,

and protected by

it.

In animals actions are not brought about by a special

act,

their

as

in

man. Action

is

whole nature. The animal

diminished by an action, there

less in

an integral part of
is
is

not augmented or

no more and no

the world as a result of animal actions.

butterfly

flies

even

when

it

primary and integral part of

is

not flying. Flying

its

The
is

whole make up.

II

Just as there

there

is

is

knowledge before

an action before

all

106

all

language, so

language: to be attacked

Language and Action

and

to

107

defend oneself, to suffer pain and to groan in

agony, to be hungry and to eat are

Man

primary unity.

all

contained in a

separated by language from

is

the creatures that do not possess language, but through

come about without

the actions that

guage,

man

is

the help of lan-

connected with the animals: these are

instinctive actions

and in them there

is

no discrepancy

between word and action: they have a unifying power.

They

exist

permanently in man, even when they are

not actually consummated in real

There

life.

is

in

man

a sphere where no discrepancy exists between words

and

actions.

A man

in

whom

instinctive actions

have

not become atrophied does not present a problem to

when words and

himself and to others even

do not coincide

reminder of the paradisian

state in

no discrepancy between words and

that, like other

actions

absolutely. Instinctive actions

are a

which there was

actions. It is true

kinds of action, instinctive actions oc-

cur in time, but time

is

present as

accident. It seems that there

is

it

were merely by

a unity between the

beginning and the end of the instinctive action not

because the instinctive action takes place very quickly

but because

it

takes place as

it

were outside the nor-

mal flow of time. It seems to belong to the one time in

which neither past nor future exists but only one
single present.

In the sphere of instinctive action space also seems

to be a single,

undivided space: when the birds

Egypt in the autumn,

side them.

at

bottom Egypt

is

fly

to

already in-

Egypt and the land they are leaving are a

unity for them, they live in a single space and a

single time

whether they are in Europe or Egypt.

Man and Language

108

They
as

They have Egypt

out on their

set

inside themselves: they

were within themselves. Similarly, in

it

divided unity.

fly

in-

all

time and space exist in a single un-

stinctive actions

is

Egypt when they

are already in

journey.

The

swiftness of an instinctive action

memory

both a frightening and an inspiring

of

Paradise.

Ill

"surplus"

If the

is

lacking, a

word becomes a mere

The

symbol, replaceable by another symbol.

which

symbols

is

and mechanical.

sterile

not only more than

than

it

action

by words that have become mere

initiated

is

man

intends to do

intends

itself. It

It
it

does more, and

to

do but more

becomes unlimited and

independent even of the symbol which initiated

seeks for

itself

since

it

it.

It

has not been sought by the

word. One action waits for another; one action

is

followed by another and follows another; one action

produces another. This

The

ness of technics.
rives

is

what

led to the boundless-

boundlessness of technics de-

from a language in which words have been

duced

to

of the world depends

said Confucius.

on the

discipline of language,"

correspondence exists between lan-

guage which has no depth and no background,

tween the

superficiality of the verbal

superficiality of boundless technics,

behind

it

and which

is

action

and unilinear

be-

symbol and the

which has nothing

entirely functional.

from the unilinear word-symbol leads

unilinear

re-

mere phonetic symbols. "The good order

The way

directly to the

technics.

Words no

Language and Action

109

longer form a heaven above the action below them,

they merely initiate the action and they are almost
inside

part of

it,

from the very

it,

start.

"Language must be replaced by a more direct and

more effective form of action, by a kind of direct
taking

action,

without a medium,

place

and

rendering nothing of the unrest from which

made

rives." (Sartre has

on

the following fine

statement by Price Parain:

this

arrived at the frontier of

the extreme

tained

human

when man

tries to see

spectator of himself.")

have here

we have

at-

himself, as though he were a

surprising quality in an action no longer comes

from the surplus

only

de-

comment

degree of tension which arises

non-human

The

"We

nature,

sur-

it

that

is

a pseudo-surprising

contained in language,
quality,

arising

it

is

from the

complications and combinations of technics, from the

boundlessness and excessiveness of technics, not from

the fullness of the surplus, but from the poverty which
seeks out surprises by experimenting with the boundless possibilities

of technics.

Actions are no longer ordered by man: he

dered by them.
tions,

He

is

or-

experiences himself through ac-

but only as the material of actions that have

now become autonomous. Here

is

one of the bases

of Heidegger's philosophy as expressed in the follow-

ing statement: "The nature of

Being."

guage,

Man who

now

Action

is

is

man

is

determined by

no longer determined by

lan-

allows himself to be determined by Being.

primary, language only the atmospherics

in the background. Language no longer produces

Man and Language

110
actions.

Language

is

action. Consequently,

itself

one of the by-products of

man

is

losing the

human

struc-

ture.

Language

is

more dynamic than

been motorized. Language makes

than he wants to be or than he

today;

static

controlled by the dynamics of language.

word, the word

at rest, is

lence

and

is

It

has

The

passive

merely a pause before the

next dynamic, active word.

foothold in man.

it

man more dynamic

ought to be. He is

The

passive has lost

its

needs a basis of silence and

si-

absent today in language and in man. Silence

quiet,

undynamic words

are left for children to

play with,

IV

When man no

longer has language for actions, ac-

tions begin to speak themselves, as action

simple.

Bombing

raids,

cities

ablaze,

workers marching in columns to their

though they are about

to

pure and

thousands of
factories

as

occupy the whole earth, for

no difference between the darkness of the

there

is

earth

and the darkness of the marching columns.

come

Revolutions to

though no word

seem

to be the

is

are anticipated in these columns,

spoken; the people in the streets

vanguard of a type of human being

which has broken through

from below, from the

depths of the earth and which has torn gaps between

the rows of houses; the menacing fire that rises at

night from factory chimneys

is

not the beginning but

the end of the burning heaven and the burning earth

all

these things are actions without words.

Language and Action

But even pure action

is

111

not entirely without a yearn-

ing for something more: even in mute action there

is

an unrest and an expectancy: a hope that the

tive

and ordering word may

fall

crea-

even into pure action.

TIME AND SPACE IN LANGUAGE

It

language that

is

man

gives

fi rst

coming of language time was

the

from past

transition

stant

Language

creates such

actuality. Before

indefinite, a con-

present

to

and

future.

an intensive present that only

the present seems ever to have existed; past and future are as

it

were absorbed by the power of the pres-

ent.

Language

was

itself

veiled until

Language comes

the present.

But not every word wants

remain

revelation

the veiling

veiled:

and

sentence runs

its

it

to

be actual; often some

is

is

it

spoken in and

moment,

in a single

takes time for

it

inde-

to

run

course.

"A

great barge

says Goethe:

The

is

about to be here on the canal,"

you can

ing, anything can

see the boat slowly approach-

happen

in this

slow-moving journey.

boat can stop or turn round, or turn into an-

other branch of the canal

stands large as

life

and then,

has

made

all

in front of you.

there, the boat also contains the

it

promise of future

course in time,

exists

pendently of the fact that

it

in

actuality.

with time, but

its

was revealed

it

to itself in the present.

of a sudden,

As

it

stands

whole journey that

to reach this point, the far

horizon where

sky meets the sea; the distant place where sky and
112

Time and Space

in

Language

113

and where the boat

sea will separate again

will dis-

appear between them. Present, past and future, each

exists
its

on

own

its

own

but they are

together, each taking

all

separate course but also present in an un-

divided unity

in language,

which

is

time, but stands above

paradise

work

unity created by the spirit at

also subject to the process of

For a moment the unity of

it.

restored.

is

In undivided time the spirit does not need to reconstruct itself from
possesses

the pieces of broken time,

an undivided whole. Time

as

itself

it

itself

longs for the wholeness of the spirit which can bring

it

fulfilment.

Man moves away

moves back

to

from undivided time and then

he

it:

is

centered in undivided time.

Divided time, chronological time, moves

hand

like the

of a clock round undivided time.

Undivided time
opposite
is

of

is

time.

a waiting for the time that

up and measures
of time

is

it,

Today
wanted

Love

as

one

who

the

is

time

whole, undivided and

waits.

man

divides

it

The measuring

fundamentally the measuring of the distance

from whole time,

lovers

is

it

Chronological

Lost in chronological time,

fulfilled.

it

the time of the spirit;

chronological

a ceaseless, futile measuring.

chronological time hastens swiftly on as

to reach

its

exists outside

if

end.

divided time and that

is

why

do not notice the passing of time. They create

time, for in the undivided time of love there

is

more

time than they themselves can use.

Words which
language marks

contain the spirit also create space;

out,

demarcates,

th^

infinitipQ

nf

Man and Language

114

And

sgace.
is

just as there

spiritual time, so too there

is

which contains the

spiritual space,

an undivided unity. Lovers

far

and near

in

live in this spiritual space;

they are close to one another and never near enough,

always far away, however near.

In poetry the distant

ment and

is

brought near in every mo-

the near hovers in the distance.

The poem

seems to be both here, in the immediate present, and

same time, everywhere.

at the

Verbal
spirit,

space and
it

language

noise,

no longer

is

grows

it

that

has no desire to do

in all directions by

language

so. It is

everywhere:

mere accumulation. Real

and through the

in

exists

abandoned the

has

able to demarcate the world of

spirit.

Verbal

a demonic imitation of the ubiquity of the

noise

is

spirit

and therefore has no present and no past or

future. All three are

mixed up together in an un-

muddle. Time

differentiated

is

excluded from and

crushed by verbal noise.

All that exists

space entirely filled with verbal

is

noise: in other words, space itself

but has become merely something

noise

where space

Time

is

really

excluded

exists,

with verbal

should be.

and love

love belong to one another.

self

no longer
filled

is excluded. Time and

The word must give it-

time to embrace the object. Only then will the

time be revealed which the object took to grow and in

which

come
time

it still

has

to itself
is

to give

love, there are

its

being.

and belong
it

no

Only then

will the object

To

give an object

to itself.

being and love.

objects.

Where

there

is

no

Time and Space

Time
will

is

Language

being expelled from language, so that

no longer be reminded o

no longer has

love,

from language.
itself

in

love; or rather,

and therefore he

is

world without love

a language without time.

115

man
man

expelling time
is

creating for

LANGUAGE AND THE HUMAN FORM

Unlike

the animal's face, the

human

face

no mere

is

continuation of the rest of the body. It has not

from below,

finally

reaching

destination

its

come

on top

only

body but has been, as it were, set down from

The body comes to a full stop here, there can
be a completely new beginning. Language is the

new

beginning.

of the

above.

Just as the

human

on top of the body,

face

expectedly, surprisingly

moment

man

for

face

is

sudden surprise

as a

the

one immediately

is

can come out of the

it

comes un-

surprise only lasts for a

realizes

the only thing possible

body, and language

that the

hu-

on top of the

the only thing possible that

human

surprise followed by the

this is the

comes

so too does language:

only possibility

face.

The

reaction of

immediate realization that

is

nomenon brought about by

man's reaction
the

direct

to a phe-

of

act

the

Creator.

In early Greek sculpture the parts of the

body were not yet

the

human

face

clearly articulated.

from which language

human

Compared with
arose, the

whole

of the rest of the body seemed like a single piece. All

differences

were

as

between the various parts of the body

nothing compared with the

116

human

face,

Human Form

Language and the

117

whence the Logos came and where it was enthroned.

like a single, homogeneous column,

The body was

which

The

existed merely to support the place of language.

human

body

usually less divided, a

is

cohesive mass, the parts are

themselves,

more

every part

is

lated, in

more wrapped up

self-embracing; in the

free,

the archi-

languages correspond to one an-

other. In animals the

more

human body and

architecture of the

tecture of

belonging to

and yet

re-

The more

un-

itself,

freedom, to the other parts.

articulated

animal body matches

articulated

sounds.

the

on the

Birdsong,

in

human body

animal's
other

un-

hand,

corresponds to the bird's ball-like body which, like

its

song,

is

everywhere in the

air.

II

Language

only intact

is

when

the brain, the speech center,

mean

that the

is

law of language

a particular part of
intact; this does

not

determined by

this

is

center, only that in the speech center of the brain

language and the body are connected. Language

free in itself, as

did not

exist,

though

and

that

this
is

the body wants to share the

thing urges

man

it

of great importance.

is

of the

life

The

But

mind and some-

language which

to participate in

right above the physical.

center

is

connection with the body

raises

fact that the speech

circumscribed shows that this connection be-

tween body and language

is

intended to be a firm

one.

The

convolutions of the speech center in the brain

are like the stamp

this place,

on the

seal,

showing that

here, in

body and language are meant to be

to-

Man and Language

118
gether.

Language

is

commitment, the connection,

the

the approximation of one

human

the approach of things to

man. Once the

being to another and

seal of unity

is

destroyed in the brain, the very essence of language

is

destroyed.

When

that

happens a

man

will, for ex-

ample, no longer be able to speak, but he will

still

be

able to understand words; or he will be able to pro-

nounce words but

them

will relate

which

to things to

they do not pertain; or he will be able to write, but

not to speak. Once the seal of unity has been broken,

language

disintegrated.

is

The mind would

be able to form the body even

without the unity which connects

all

the activities of

language, but thanks to this unity, the formation takes

place constantly

the mental

and

autonomous and forget

And

itself.

which

and

is

it

is

Without the unity of

naturally.

and physical the mind would become too

through

its

related, the

nevertheless

that

it

does not belong to

opposition to the body with

mind becomes aware

protected

of itself

from the dangers of

absolute sovereignty.
Ill

Man

is

upright

the suddenness and decisiveness of

the act by which

present

man was made

the solitary

vertical

The movement by which

form.
ated

in

is

in

to

line

stand erect
of the

this vertical

is

human
was

cre-

the solitariness and seclusion of the up-

right figure.

The

decisiveness

with

which

language

through silence and the decisiveness of the

the

human form

correspond to one another.

breaks

vertical in

Man

keeps

Human Form

Language and the

means

to the vertical by

man

truth draws

vertical

is

the

to

Logos:

it

man

can give

goes out to meet the vertical from above.

The liar is crooked and bent, he

The liar falls out of the vertical.
The decisiveness of language,

writhes and creeps.

the

circumscribed

The

nature of the decision, also forms the face.

cumscribed

of

act

form of the

of

up-

the

confirmed by language. This

is

the grace from below which

to himself,

word

of language, the

upwards,

rightness of the body

119

cir-

and the circumscribed

decision

face belong to one another.

Animal sounds

are vague, extending like a dark

The equine

fog along the surface of the earth.

of the centaurs

bodies

and the leonine bodies of the Egyptian

sphinxes with their

human

faces

above their animal

bodies suggest that animals have an urge to be like

man, who

possesses language, to be with

him, near the place where language

When

language ceases

comes purely symbolic,

because the

spirit in

him

to

be of the

man
still

upright, but merely because

is

still

him and

in

spoken.

and

spirit

stands

erect

be-

not

summons him to stand

once summoned him.

it

The man who no longer has the language that keeps

him in the vertical position, corresponds to the man
who speeds away horizontally in a car or on a motorcycle.

Language

bal noise

and the

that has been degraded to

flight of the

human form

mere

as

it

ver-

rushes

by in a car or on a motorcycle, belong to one another,

they are mixed up together.

The

drowns out the noise of language.

noise of the

No word

of stopping this scurrying noise of car

cycle

only

a signal or a whistle.

is

motor

capable

and motor-

Man and Language

120

The Word which

man from

called

to the vertical has not gone,

human form and

the

however.

holds

it

the horizontal

hovers over

It

Man

in position.

held erect by the invisible net of the

Word

is

that hovers

man moves alongside this first

Word. He speaks alongside it, he is surrounded by

over him. Even today

its

sound.

IV

silent

man

himself and gives

If silence

its

him

did not

he had spoken:

who

has the dignity of one

lofty mission; the silence reaches out

has a

beyond the

man

dignity.

man would

exist,

silence,

be

restless until

however, carries the word to

goal for him.

Silence

is

not the darkness of night, but the radiance

of night preparing for the light of language, resting

before the arrival of language.

human body. The silence

human form are connected.

Silence helps to shape the

and the repose

Words

that are

take themselves

in the

no longer

related to silence, not only

away from themselves, they

also take

man away from himself. He loses his connection with

his own silent form. Man is isolated from himself and
divided within himself

and

here

is

another reason

for the increasing schizophrenia of our time.

In the silent image of the face there

something of that

first

moment

before the arrival of his

first

to release the

word. There

every silence:

it

is

in

exists

word; and did not dare

a trace of that fear in

gives depth to the silence;

back to the beginning.

still

which man waited,

it

reaches

Language and the

Human Form

121

Without language the human form would be

the magic token of an invisible magic;

machine directed from

like a

afar.

it

like

would move

Language makes

human form autonomous, self-directing. The animals who lack language seem like beings controlled
by the earth or stars; and the man who forgoes the
the

spirit

also

seems to be controlled from afar by de-

monic powers.
silent

man

seems to be more powerful than

the speaking

man;

silence

The

seems more powerful than

language; but silence has this power only because

is

from

silence that

language comes, because

it

it

con-

tains language.

When man

speaks, his

whole form suddenly

comes the border that surrounds language.

He

besur-

rounds language with his form and everything that

was mere appearance

in his

form becomes a

reality.

The human form seems to be listening silently like

the person who is spoken to. Through language the
human form is firmly established, like a stake in the
ground.

Where
language,
live in.

human form is
man remains. There

the

firmly

House and language belong

Outside in the open

air the

established

to

human form

is

on

its

one another.

human form

which has congealed round language but

the

own

by

he builds a house to

is

again and

walls of the house hold language in.

like air

in the house

now

the

LANGUAGE AND THE VOICE

The sound

of a voice seems to have

before the beginning of

where

ble
is

man

and

is

man

its

beginning long

himself. It becomes audi-

seems to continue

it

after

he

gone.

"The sound with which a human soul was torn

away from eternity so that it might achieve actuality,
sound echoes in the

this

particular

its

voice,

it

gives to the voice

unmistakable timbre." ("The

Human

Face")
It is easier to

by

recognize a person by his voice than

The

his face.

voice

fluences than the face;

During

less subject to

a lifetime

may

be broken; but the specifically

brightness; the tone

personal quality of the voice

"When
ity

is

never changed.

Titon implored Jupiter to bestow immortal-

on him he did not include youth

and he

the influence

human environment in genit may lose its clarity and

of other people and the

eral.

altered by external in-

less

is

it is

finally

in his petition

dwindled into an immortal voice,"

wrote Jean Paul.

A
and
tell

person
it

is

immediately recognizable by

also reveals his character. It

a person's character

from

more

his face.

a more direct token of character.

122

is

his voice

difficult to

The

voice

is

Language and the Voice

The
same

voice

personal:

is

time, hovi^ever,

up with the

it

reveals the person.

it

objective since

is

due

is

and

single

human

When

beyond

enduring

is

At the
bound

to this extra-personal, ob-

jective quality. It is a sign that there

immutable

it

The unchange-

person's family history.

ableness of the voice

123

something

is

the

span

of

life.

two people are talking

one another, the

to

words they hear are constantly changing, but the

voices never change. This gives the speakers assurance

and the

certainty of the existence of

mutable.

The timbre

something im-

of the voice seems to protect the

words.

The

voice comes

places, but

from

the distance actuality.

words gives

which

far

away and goes

language of which

The

to the voice

man was

torn

The timbre

truth

away

The

to distant

the vehicle gives

is

which man puts into

something of the truth from

fore joy exists in the voice

give truth actuality.

it

at his beginning;

when

the words

it

thereutters

voice rejoices.

of the voice

which comes from man's

beginning, and the silence that

behind words,

lies

belong together. In the timbre of the voice the silence

can be heard; the timbre of the voice creates a longing for silence and for that which

lies

beyond the

beginning of man, but at the same time the timbre of

the voice creates a longing for words.

By reason
eternal

of

its

timbre, the voice belongs to the

and objective world from which

by reason of the language of which

it

is

in the world.

objective

and the

The

voice

subjective.

is

The

it is

it

came and

the vehicle,

compound
eternal

of the

and the

Man and Language

124

worldly are both contained in the voice. jChe _voice

m an's

reveals a

and

basic nature

capacity; the

words

he speaks reveal what he has made of his basic

caacitY^

One cannot
one can

only hear the voice of another person;

see

also

it

face

his

The voice^can be
face. The face be-

heard in the silence of a person's

an d

longs, to the voice

On

to

silence.

its

on

the telephone voices exist

man becomes

own.

their

On

"Whenever
my grandmother spoke to me I followed what she
said in the open score of her face in which the eyes
took up much space but I heard her voice on the
telephone for the first time today and the voice
seemed different and all on its own. It came divorced
from the features of her face and I discovered how
the telephone

mere

voice.

exceedingly gentle

it

But was that her

was." *

one we see along with the

the voice

not given to

is

The

real voice?

face,

man on

whole person, and

lation to the

it

real voice

its

separated,

is

own

but in

The

re-

voice on

abstract, in the true sense of the

abstracted

the

can only be fully

expressed within this total relationship.

the telephone

is

in the face, since

word,

from the Whole of which

it

forms a part.
II

conflict

of the voice
as

may

possibly arise between the objectivity

and the

subjectivity of the

expressed in language.

result

o f excessive su bjec tivit y.

* Marcel Proust,

The Duchess

of

human mind

shrieking voice

The

s hrieking

Guermantes

is

the

v oice

Language and the Voice

of the dictator

an attemp t jio destroy the voice an d

is

the ob]ec tivity_which

to

softly

lies

it

The

represent s.

from which

in the course of his

comes.

it

The more

becomes empty, but a second emptiness

by the discrepancy between the

which comes from the

the burden of the

The

Language

voices of prostitutes

is

though

prostitutes

language

itself as

and

madmen do

and

if

the

The
Fall
is

voice

discrepancy between

in the Fall: language

deeper than the voice which

was dragged down

the vehicle of language.

constantly related to the eternal world

is

from which

destroy

are not equally expressive

which brought about the

it

has come. Language

world only by a

Man

not seem

seems as

It

madmen were trying to

human voice.

and language originated

means

to bear

well as the

Language and the voice

The

and the voice

manufactured afresh for every word, as

of the nature of a person.

voice

also created

lies.

have a continuous existence.

sound

lies

is

world and has

eternal

the greater will be

life,

the conflict between voice and language.

to

speaks

liar

hide his voice or screams to suppress the

objective world

man

125

is

related to that

special act of the spirit.

often tries to overcome

of the chatter in

the discrepancy by

which there

is

no

difference

between voice and language, in which both become a

single verbal noise.

Words have

difficulty in

It

pear at any

moment and

eternal

emerging from the voice

seems that the child's words

of children.

may

disap-

return with the voice to the

world where the voice has

its

home.

In some people the voice seems to arise from the

Man and Language

126

ground which
seem

to

ukimate source. Other voices

its

is

have no awareness of the source from which

They seem

they come.

to

know

only about them-

selves.

In

God

God

On

the voice

Word

the

is

Word

also the

is

of

itself.

The Voice

the radio the voice

is

on the

more

hardly anything

than a purely phonetic phenomenon. There

a difference

of

God.

is

still

between the various voices that are heard

radio, but

it

is

only a semantic difference.

We

do not hear the voice which has made the journey

from

eternity to

man.

We

only hear the voice that

made the journey from

listener. The radio voice is
has

vehicle

which

pulls

the words

the

radio

only

the

along.

set

to

the

mechanical

That

is

why

words heard on the radio never make the same impact as the words spoken by a person

who

is

actually

present.
Is
all

not music an attempt to lead the

voices

sounds of

back to the beginning whence came the

sound of the

first

human

voice? In music the

human

away from man and led back

to the beginning and to be returning from the beginning as man waits in silence for it to come back
voice seems to be taken

to

him.

LANGUAGE AND PICTURES

The

position of the picture

language.
the
it

It

picture,

becomes an active

made uneasy by

is

jects,

uneasy in

lence

is

silence

silence.

and

circumscribed:

is

Outside the picture, the

the proximity of other ob-

But in the picture the

silence.

its

silence

and language. In

influences both silence

circumscribed

object

between

is

si-

eloquent and assured.

Pictures also have an effect

of a picture

man

is

on language. In front

words

silent;

are, as

it

were, ab-

sorbed by the picture: they seem to return to silence.

"And

so

one day

all

our dreams about eternity will

be destroyed by eternity

language

is

itself," says

destroyed by pictures.

in front of a picture,

it

as

picture.

The

guage.
It

It

though

it

it

had

silent picture

Thus
stands

seems as though he loses

language for a moment, but

moment

Jean Paul.

When man

returns in the very next

just

imparts

escaped

from the

silence to lan-

its

redeems language from absolute unrestraint.

holds language in check. Pictures are able to pre-

vent

man from

hidden.
silence

The
is

entering into that which

silence of pictures

is

is

legitimately

not a weakness since

the mother of language.

In the presence of pictures language rests and

cuperates.

There

is

an urge in
127

man

to

re-

contemplate

Man and Language

128

memory

silent pictures, in

of the paradisical state be-

Man's

fore language brought about the Fall.

earliest

beginnings are stimulated by pictures. Silent pictures

have the power

to excite

In abstract art language

and surprise man.

is

not absorbed into the pic-

ture but merely pushed away. Abstract art lacks the

silence of the true picture;

it

only has the muteness

of the abstract stroke.

II

Once when
is

today and

the world was

cities,

more

picture-like than

human

buildings,

gestures

it

and

ways of life were more circumscribed and therefore

more picture-like, people's attitude toward pictures
and the pictorial was a perfectly natural one. Pictures
were

obtrusive than they are today; they were

less

simply the condensation of the pictures that existed

everywhere.

seemed

to

They were taken

for granted because they

have been painted by the picture-creating

force that appeared to inspire

pictures

all

pictures. Pictures created pictures. It

mous world of pictures.

and when man came to
him in his dreams.
Pictures looked at

them.

man
at

it

The

painted

was an autono-

were everywhere,

sleep, pictures

man more

went before

than he looked at

man, and

down before them; by being looked

man himself learned how to look and

cast his eyes

to be silent.

was not easy

tures.

Pictures

eyes of the pictures looked at

by pictures

how

The

life.

were the origin of a thousand other unpainted

Above

to

all,

speak in

special act

he learned
this silent

was needed

to speak, for

world of

to fetch

pic-

words out

Language and Pictures

of

silence.

Words were

deeply

129

significant

because

they could only be brought into being in opposition to

Words had to defend themselves against picWords

had to be utterly true. Truth endowed
tures.
them with an existence of their own. Words were
silence.

kss in danger than they are today of

mere

falling into

routine since they had constantly to be asserting themselves against pictures.

Ill

In a world thus determined by pictures, language

too

was

full of pictures.

was turned towards the

It

object, encircling the object

which properly belongs

guage

The

is static.

man

to

and bringing

it.

to

it

that

Concrete pictorial lan-

picture of the object precedes the

way from the picword and this saves

him from rushing from one word to the next.
word

so that

has time, on the

ture to the word, to ponder the

Poets have such a wealth of images that they need

the realm of night and sleep and dreams to

room

make

for them.

In the poetic comparison, related things are brought

together.

The comparison makes

things clearer than

they were before on their own. Competition exists

among things
The power of

to

be

made

through the image.

clear

the image gives things the strength of

the beginning of things.

The language

of Christ

was not

for the sake of the poetry.

poetic

By naming

and concrete
things Christ

enhanced them and made them poetic in themselves.

The

soul of the child

explains

its

is

full

of images

timidity. It fears the fall

and

from the

this

silent

Man and Language

130

picture into language. In the poet this fear alternates

with the Hybris which impels him

from the

words and

to

drop defiantly

dangerous realm of

silent picture into the

take the picture with

to

him

the

into

danger zone.

The word

that

is

image must have

in the poet's

Word from which

center in the Original

Just as the painted picture refers

Original

Word which

Original
If

the

so

Picture,

word

the

is

back

its

comes.

it

silently to the

word refers back

word and picture in

to

the

one.

not centered in the Original Word,

is

the image will be

all

too vague.

The images

will flow

(Compare
which
Giono
not
Jean

past merely for the sake of flowing past.

the images in the language of

merely follow but pursue one another.)

IV
Pictures

would not

without language. Chil-

exist

dren only begin to draw when they are already capable of expressing themselves in words.*

through language

that

pictures

learn

It

only

is

there

is

an

Original Picture toward which they are striving and

which shines through

on

own

their

all

pictures. Pictures are a

world

but they also wait for language. They

sense the heaven of language above them. Pictures

need language because

that they

know

its

is,

own

is

only through language

man

gives the object time,

love. In love the object

becomes an image of

Pictures seek for

that

it

they belong to the Original Picture.

man,

for

beginning.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty
* K. Biihler,

The

is

Intellectual

wrong when he

says that

Development of the Child.

Language and Pictures

131

painting and language are merely two different modes

Language

of expression.

when language

ing, for

and
It

pictorial art generally lose their true nature too.

language that makes the pictorial

is

mous.

When

comes

abstract,

way

in fact superior to paint-

is

loses its true nature, painting

language

is

Pictures

man more

mere sounds.

to

sometimes capable of overwhelming

are

than words. They can have a magical

on him; they can transform him without

it.

According

when

autono-

reduced to abstract strokes in the same

words are reduced

that

arts

destroyed, pictorial art be-

effect

his noticing

Socrates, virtue can be taught, but

to

has molded the whole interior and exterior

it

being of a person in the form of and by means of a

picture,

it

does not need to be taught. Pictures could

change

man

choice,

no capacity

for

are ready to

good or

man had no power

evil if

mold him. The

of

which

for resisting the influences

capacity for decision

is

part of man's essential nature. For that reason too

words are greater than

pictures. Klopstock wrote:

Es erreicht die Farbe dich

nicht,

teilbare Last, Gottin Sprache,

Dich

des

Marmors

nicht!

Nur Weniges bilden sie un

und es zeigt sich uns auf einmal.

Dem

Dich des Horers

Schopfung sich auf.

Erfinder, welcher durch

Seele bewegt, tat sich die

Abstract words

move more

freely

than concrete

words but they are dangerous because they are not

circumscribed.
frontiers

and

They speak
to

men

into a

world without any

without frontiers

who

are

no

Man and Language

132
longer

men

at all. If abstract

words are related

to the

concrete fullness of things, and not to their emptiness

and

sterility,

they will, like the conceptual words used

by Dante, be heavy with

this fullness.

VI
Chinese written characters are things without words,
the images of things, silently speaking to one another.

Chinese monosyllabic words are the sounds of the

pictures; visible rather than audible.

Chinese often cannot understand the words of

Confucius or Chi-King unless he knows the pictorial

symbol pertaining
veys the

word

is

to

the words.

The symbol

con-

meaning of the spoken word. The spoken

bound up with the written word;

The Chinese

it

refers

is

protected by the picture.

are thereby

saved from the dynamic

back to the picture;

it

onward rush of words. Modern China, which is turning to the dynamism of the West, is abandoning picture-writing and trying to introduce phonetic writing.

In our language words have

are

more dependent

for their

more freedom but they

meaning on other words.

In Chinese they stand on their own; nothing needs to

be added to them; they merely need

The

to

be uncovered.

sentences of the Chinese sages are like blossoms

which open and unfold before us and

close

again

when man leaves them, opening anew when he returns. Our medieval writing was more decorative than
modern

writing; the lines of the letters were

round the

object, enclosing

and protecting

it.

writing rushes past the object like a motor car.

drawn
Today

Language and Pictures

133

VII

There was

between the world

originally a frontier

of painting and

world of language. Since the

the

Renaissance the frontier has been removed. Pictures

no longer speak above

speak as

all

as

They

pictures.

man

they were words and

if

try

to

interprets the

"language" of pictures in words. Language no longer

dissolves

into

front of pictures;

silence in

longer refreshed and renewed by them.

is

it

On

no

the con-

pictures are in danger of being absorbed by

trary,

words.
In the paintings of Grunewald,
the
is

human

face

and

in danger of being torn apart;

tear,

it

seems

as

though

and body and even the whole picture

words would come

out, the

as if

through the

sound made in

tear-

ing would become the sound of words. Language and

picture are not opposed to one another here.

They

are a unity.

In the painting of Pieter Brueghel, the pictures

on

seem

to be

pany

at a feast to

It

own, enjoying

their

man

which

their

own com-

has not been invited.

seems in Vermeer van Delft's paintings as though

light

were forever playing on

words. Language has

left

things,

instead

of

the light to play with the

pictures.

The

pictures

of

Herkules Seghers are sad and

lonely because the things

seem

to

have been forced to

remain without words.

There

is

a light in the pictures of Rembrandt around

which the images of things are gathered; they are absorbed into this light.

Man and Language

134

VIII

When

man

he dreams,

Dreams and
own. One dream is
things.

their

with the images of

lives

images are a world on their

related to another.

Image speaks

image; images are the words of dreams; the colors

to

of the images, the

up and down

of their

movement

are the body of the images just as vowels

The

sonants are the body of words.

and con-

pictures in

dreams

speak to one another and to man, without words.

There

is

They seem

no language

the images

in

of dreams.

to be striving to penetrate to the

language. There

is

Are not

tures of dreams.

realm of

something unredeemed in the

the

movements

pic-

of pictures

in dreams, their restlessness, a sign of their longing

for

words?

after a

When

dream

battle against
is

it

the

first

seems

word comes
though

it

in the

morning

has survived the

the wordless images of dreams.

careful with the first

The images

as

words that come

after a

Man

dream.

of dreams also penetrate into the lan-

guage of everyday

life.

It

true

is

that

in

dreams,

images dream predominantly for themselves, but by

this very

independence they

affect the life of every-

day.

The images

of the

images of dreams, they

They seem

to

lie less

heavily

on the ground.

man

but to another,

belong not only to

and man is less

own purposes.
The trace of
sometimes

day are made lighter by the

confident of occupying things for his

the divine that

revealed as

is

in

all

language

is

an image in the images of

Language and Pictures

dreams: hence the

fact that

135

some dreams contain a

prophecy of things to come.

IX

The images

The

of dreams cannot be explained.

images of dreams are not aftected by explanation.

It

make them even more independent and

only seems to

sovereign than before.

Psychoanalysis destroys the images of dreams, the

images vanish in the process of analysis. The dream

ceases to be

an image,

if

it

the dream-image,
late

its

down

leveled

is

universal pictureless condition of today;

pregnancy, tempts

to the

it is

true that

man

to trans-

image into words, but language must not

the

be allowed to

drown

which

the image,

pens in psychoanalysis.

It

must

is

what hap-

clearly reveal the

im-

age as an image.

The

person

whose language has been destroyed

seeks for the lost

image by means of psychoanalysis.

But psychoanalysis can only supply the shattered image

the

shattered

image corresponding

to the shattered

word.

The

interest in

dream-images today

is

due

to

man's

realization that images, concrete images as opposed

to the abstract concept, are
spiritual

make-up. The

an

human

essential part of his

spirit is

images. In psychological analysis

man

hungry

tries

hold of the image, but instead he crumbles and

solves

The

for

keep

to

dis-

it.

picture-like quality has

been destroyed in the

inner and outer world today; the

longer picture-like.

The

picture

is

human

face

is

no

lacking which ab-

Man and Language

136
sorbs the

thing

man

is

many

himself.

himself;

it

The

says

discreet. In his

face

hunger

tures they supply

at all real pictures.

and they

is

more than

cinema and reads the

real life.

come

things that

to the face. Every-

from

in front of the face, almost escaping

further forward than

intends to say:

it

for pictures

man

it

man
is

in-

goes to the

illustrated papers, but the pic-

him with are

They have no

They merely appear

take man with them

pseudo-pictures, not
real life

and give no

in order to disappear,

into the nothingness in

which they vanish.

I

due

believe that the increasing insomnia of today

to the

which

is

increasing

lack

of

not fed with pictures

out, always

is

pictures.

is

spirit

always on the look-

awake.

Pictures have a healing influence

the healing

The

power

which comes from

of the Original Picture to

the true picture belongs.

which

LANGUAGE AND POETRY

Poetry

a world of

is

own, a primary world, from

its

which the poet derives

his experience.

The

poet does

not proceed from reality to poetry but from poetry

to

The higher

reality.

The

descends to the lower.

world of poetry seeks for an object (res poetica

and

jusiva sui)

yearns to enter the world of poetry;

taken into the world of poetry.

The

the world of poetry as he writes.

He

world of

reality

it

waits to be

poet moves into

lives

between the

and the world of poetry. The poem

The

proceeds from the poet into the world of poetry.

poet

is

left

in

its

turn,

Then

perfect

new poem

and again the poet

arrival of the next

between the two worlds in

alone, living

his loneliness.

dij-

sought for by the object. Reality

is

poem

arrives, to disappear
is

alone,

until

the

poem.
leaves

us with the feeling that

there can never be another poem.

This one poem

seems to pervade the whole world. Then, when another

it

poem

does appear, this one has the same

seems to be the only

ence of a

poem

is

poem

in the world.

so powerful that

it

effect:

The

pres-

shuts out

all

The perfect poem gives man

existence. "A poem," according to

thought of other poems.

himself actuality,

Baudelaire, "does not state anything:

137

it is

something."

Man and Language

138

poems continue

All other

mediate poem

A
a

to exist

while the one im-

but they exist in silence.

present,

is

Shakespearean drama seems

to

be the center of

whole world of dramas which are

around the one, waiting

silently until

King Henry

in the center themselves.

111

grouped

all

they shall be
is,

as

it

were,

listened to not only by the other persons in the play

but also by the kings and mighty

They

all plays.

men and

are the true listeners

people actually in the play learn to

The

poem

perfection of a

man; language

well as to

from

lovers of

whom

the

listen.

belongs to language as
the objective in lan-

itself,

guage, aspires to perfection and becomes aware of

itself

But

in perfection.

man's honor that the

is

it

perfection of language also belongs to him.

There
joy,

joy in language, objective, self-contained

is

when

it

Language shows man

perfect.

is

man:

rejoices to be perfect in
ful,

by

its

own

it

makes

that

it

itself beauti-

effort.

II

The

poetry of antiquity has not been affected by

the passage of time and

pened in time. Poetry

from antiquity

to

our

the things that have hap-

all

new unity of time,

The fullness of ancient

creates a

own

day.

poetry reached forward from the beginning even into

our
it

own

time.

moves on

ness of

It

sheds

to us in

movement.

its

It

its

light

own

is

still

on ages yet

light,

to

come;

with no conscious-

in antiquity as well as

with us in our world today.

Such poetry gives one a sense of a universal time

in

which

past,

present and future are one.

When

Language and Poetry

words are
creating

on through time,

so powerful that they live

own

their

future,

139

have to penetrate

they

death and continue to exist in death. There

room enough
through

them

for

in

and find a place

life

guage makes

man

not

is

so they strive to pass

life,

Lan-

to live in death.

immortal.

Ill

The

objects referred to in poetry

must

ity" or they

at

which they could be

in

only

if it

must

present.

sustains. Poetry

is

it

itself

the heaven above reality but

it

needs

when

be a drifting cloud. Only

Goethe's

are

own

on

when

artisan

they

may

reality

it

will only

is

divorced

to

explain

were

closer

it.

to

In
the

and the peasant than they

be heard at almost any time

the radio or read in the papers.

isolated

They were not

from the common world, they formed part of

whole pattern of sound.

its

Today
things:

the

he

can only

it

words needed

time his poems

working man, the

are today

exist

which

the solid earth of reality below, otherwise

from poetry

reality

poem can

sustained by real things,

is

exist in "real-

any rate be related to a

is

live

perfect

poet has

become divorced from

and thrive

poem

is

if it is

things

related to real things.

also related to the things

does not specifically refer

lin,

real

hunting for them with words. Poetry

to.

In a

poem

which are not mentioned can

heard. All things can be heard.

The poem

which

of Holder-

is

also

be

represent-

and speaks of all things in partibus infidelium.

Someone wrote to me: "One is tempted to go to

ative

Man and Language

140

poetry not only for the solitude that one lacks in this
turbulent age, but also for the radiance and brightness
of the world of poetry, as though there were

no

ness outside poetry but only a hellish darkness

bright-

...

have often spent a whole morning reading nothing

but Holderlin; but in the afternoon
a

walk

little

had gone." vBut the

emptiness
vents

all

around

not because the

it

empty.

went

for

The

poem can endure

perfect
it,

for

from becoming an

it

when

in the fields, this solid world of poetry

poem

mitigates

it

abyss.

has

The

it

and

the
pre-

emptiness arises

a given space, leaving

left

emptiness arises in the space where

poetry has not yet been.

move to other things

move at the same time

In the "real" world things

and

human

to

to the place

beings, but they

where they can be

free again, the

world

They weigh less heavily on the earth thanks

upward movement. Poetry makes the earth

of poetry.
to

this

lighter by lifting things

up

into

itself.

In poetry things

are images of reality, images of the earth, but at the

same time they follow

tion.

Poetry

is

their

own

and therefore poetry

of heaven,

heavenly constella-

both an image of earth and an image

clearly revealing things in the

is

both near and

image of earth and

far,

yet

allowing them to hover in the radiance of the image

of heaven.

Poetry liberates things so that they speak for themselves

and

are not merely spoken. In poetry

coming

is

in this

life

all

Be-

absorbed in Being. All expediency vanishes

which seems

to

never-changing consistency.

be eternal, this

life

of

Language and Poetry

141

IV
In ordinary everyday language a special act seems

needed to bring

to be

into being at

it

In poetry, language comes to

self

all,

whereas in

own accord.
man, whereas man him-

comes into being of

poetry, language

its

has to go out to meet ordinary language. Ordinary

language yearns for something

with

The language

itself.

else.

It is

dissatisfied

on the other hand

of poetry

has a sense of fulfilment. Ordinary language seeks for

which poetry already

the grace

guage,
things

man

in

has. In ordinary lan-

hears what he says about himself and

poetry he listens to what things say about

themselves. Poetry comes

down

man from

to

above.

"There are mornings, holy dawns, when a few drops

of

dew

fall

from heaven," wrote Klopstock.

In ordinary language there

urge;

it

dynamic onward

is

on progress and movement. The language

lives

of poetry has a primary existence of

does not become:

of a perfect

poem

What comes
however;

poem

that

the

first

the overflow

it is

it

is

poem
line

its

own.

With
is
is

the

poem

first line

already present.

not superfluous,

which exceeds the merely

There

therefore a gift.

is

more

in

absolutely necessary to describe some-

is

thing poetically

itself.

the whole

after

necessary and

it

unfolds

it

is

this

that constitutes the true

poem.

The language

dynamic purpose-

of poetry holds the

fulness of ordinary language in check.

of poetry

is

not more influential

when

the language of everyday

life.

influence just because

different.

it is

It

The language
the poet uses

exerts a powerful

Man and Language

142

The
But

poet cannot overcome the tyranny of the tech-

world by making

nical

the subject of his poetry.

it

in the blue of a hairbell he can gather together

poem

in his

solitude of

all

all

the blueness of the earth and the

the blueness of the earth, so that the

speed and noise of the technical world seem like the

movement

of the

shadow

from the blue on

that falls

to the machines. Airplanes are then like bees flying

round the

hairbell in a

dream, for night and dreams

are also present in the day of such a poet.

The

poet cannot take the existence of language for

granted.

He

again from

has as

its

it

original

were

to the divine origin of language

grace.

fetch

to

home; he

again and

it

therefore nearer

is

and that

is

the poet's

But in the original word the poet

nearer to the origins of nature and the danger

his spirit

the

may

rhythm

allow

itself to

of nature

and

be swayed too

is
is

also

that

much by
may

in particular that he

himself too closely with the eruptive and

identify

convulsive elements in nature. This

the nervous anxiety of the poet.

the reason for

is

He

is

nearer the

divine origin of language than other men, but he

also has a deeper abyss within himself:

of falling deeper than other

above the abyss in his

own

he

is

fearful

men. The true poet

spirit

and

soars

sings the abyss

to sleep.

The

poet's

temptation

the abyss, to dig

it

is

constantly to tear open

ever deeper, that he

again with his singing.

may drown

it

A LETTER

Dear Dr. M.,

You have written to me
studying a poem such as

to say that

when you

are

the following by Goethe

with your pupils, you advise them to go out into the

fields

as

alone and try to experience the twilight there

it is

described in the poem:

Dammerung
Schon

Doch

senkte sich von oben

ist alle

zuerst

Holden

Nahe

fern;

emporgehoben

Lichts der Abendstern!

schwankt

ins Ungewisse,
Nebel schleichen in die Hoh';

Alles

Schwarzvertiefte Hindernisse

Widerspiegeln ruht die See.

That

is

the poet

just

is

what Abbe Bremond

says.

He

believes

trying to direct us to a particular experi-

ence, to transplant us into a particular, higher situation.

To my mind

that

is

a false interpretation of

the poet's task. Experience and the emotion roused by

experience

is

characteristic neither of the process of

writing poetry nor of the process of understanding

Through

real poetry the reader or listener

is

poem, he becomes part of

it:

into the life of the

it.

drawn
it

was

thus that the listeners to Greek tragedy belonged to

the tragedy.

The

categories of "emotion"

143

and "experience" are

Man and Language

144

They only

far too trivial.

Never has humanity been

own

in our

is

so

moved

to the depths as

time and never has there been so

poetry as now.
poetry

exist in the psychic sphere.

The primary

little

factor in the writing of

not experience or emotion but creative power.

Otherwise every depth-psychological soul-shaker and

The creative power of

The creative power must
experience. The poet's task is not

would be

his patients

poets.

the poet leads to experience.

come

not the

first,

to translate experience

him

prive
is

of

That would

into poetry.

all originality.

Needless to say, a

de-

poem

preceded by an encounter with things. But the en-

counter

only

is

fully

realized

in

and through the

poem by means of which it becomes a perfect encounter. The poem is superior to the encounter that
precedes it. It is also superior to time. The magic of
poetry

is

that

it

annuls the sequence of ordinary time.

wrong to teach children to take hold of things

emotionally. They must be brought to recognize the
It is

and

existence of things

to

understand things to which

they are not bound emotionally. Emotion, the

mediacy of emotion,
as

is,

Hegel

surpassed.

is

im-

not the measure of things.

said, only a

It

beginning which has to be

Emotion must be fashioned

of the objective reality that

is

to

the shape

lacking in pure emo-

tion.
I

believe

truth, above

that
all

poem represents and transmits

The poet and the understand-

things.

ing listener (or pupil) meet on the basis of truth.

The poem leads

The truth of

the listener into the sphere of truth.

a

poem

does

not detract from

beauty in spite of the fact that truth

is

its

the only cate

A
gory worthy of poetry.
to the Original

which

145

Letter

The

truth of a

Truth and beauty

poetic truth illumines

its

is

poem

aspires

the radiance with

way

to the Original

Truth.

Your M.P.

THE PRE-GIVEN WORLD OF POETRY

has been forgotten today that poetry does not

It

merely depend on the poet himself, but

that,

like

everything pertaining to the basic structure of man,

it

him

given to

is

made

in advance.

have made everything,

to

dream summit
which lead

"We

have not been

to sit

on the etheral

of the universe but

to the

on the

rising steps

gods and beside the gods" wrote

Jean Paul.

The

poet makes poetry with the poetry that

him

given to

existence of

man

before

in

its

advance. Poetry has

own. There

is

is

an objective

poetry in the world

even begins to write poetry.

Man

re-

sponds to the poetry that comes to him by writing

poetry of his own.

pregiven

this

The

poet

objective

is

and

more
the

in dialogue with

eternal

poetry than with himself and other

When
knew
of

read

Stifter's

that poetry

was

world

human

"Witiko" for the

first

of

beings.

time

in the world before the advent

man.

The

poetry that comes to the poet as a gift from

without

is

not the poetry that other poets, past poets

and

living poets bring to the poet but

that

is

it is

the poetry

given to the poet before ever he has knowledge

of other poets, past or present.

146

The

World

Pre-given

147

of Poetry

This objective world of poetry was created in the

act of the creation of

man

himself and

his structure. In this pre-given

woven

into

world of poetry the

poet meets with the origins and beginnings of things

and

own

his

personal originality finds

its

measure

therein.

The

pre-given world of poetry

thing that, whilst

nevertheless

essentially,

the

provides

Because

have

to

for

basis

objective,

is

some-

belongs to man, belongs to

it

every

objective

it is

It

relationship.

woven into man's structure, he

make a special effort to establish a

it is

ship with the objective,

him

reaches out beyond him.

does not
relation-

part of his original exist-

ence.

The
not

objectivity of this pre-given

identical

what

with

jective poetry."

It

is

is

world of poetry

sometimes

called

is

"ob-

not the same as what Dilthey

characterized as the objective poetry of Goethe. "In

seeking for the structural laws and permanent forms

human

in

life,

phenomena
relationships

he organized the motley throng of

into

number of
The

and

society."

basic types, of

man,

objectivity of the pre-

given world of poetry exists before these objective

them only because he has

them from the objective and eternal

laws; the poet can apply

already received

world in which they are contained.

The

poet

who

has objectivity within himself, as

part of his structure, does not need to

the object, does not need to take

occupy

He
self

it

in the

way

it

jump behind

by surprise, to

that Ernst Jiinger occupies them.

captures the object as though

alone and to no one

else.

it

He

belonged to himdoes not seem to

Man and Language

148

want anyone

is

no

love.

and imprisoning. The image

it

The Thou is lackThe image is inclusive

else to share the object.

ing in Jiinger: there

is

not really perfect but

does have the technical perfection of a machine.

One can

almost hear the image hacking

its

w^ay into

the object.

The

image,

perfect

how^ever,

which the

object

dreams about

the perfect

image

is

make

to

is

like

itself.

dream

the

The

effect

the object belong

of

more

to itself, not to the poet.

The

world of poetry

objectivity of the pre-given

on which the

the basis

poetic act takes place:

poem together.
In a poem one can

it

is

holds

the

feel

the trembling excitement

with which the poet has awaited the

it

gift of poetry:

present in the rhythm. But one can also sense

is

the relief he
cepted: there

has
is

when

felt

the

gift

has been

ac-

both excitement and serenity in the

rhythm.

When

the poet

and

objective

no longer

in

touch with the

world of poetry, he

will find

it

to maintain the poetic state. It will always

difficult

seem

is

eternal

to be

on the point of

dissolution.

And

this

is

true of a great deal of poetry today: one feels that the

poet
act

is
is

poem.
the

in such

danger of losing

needed

to

He

poem

his

hold that a special

keep every word in place in the

has to be constantly checking to see whether

still is

poem:

if

the poet

the poem, he cannot be carefree.

is

kind, in which the poet has had to

effort,

were

and the

to describe

not free towards

poem of this
make a constant

If a

our whole world of machines

threats that imperil our existence,

it

would

The

World

Pre-given

of Poetry

149

be appropriate to our time, but only because of the

effort that

in

had been put

Our time

it.

into

it,

not because of poetry

supremely one of

is

and

effort

exertion.

Divorced from the objective world of poetry the

poet has difficulty in maintaining his hold on poetry.

The same kind

Some modern
stability to

of difficulty

laws of

statics,

own on

their

apparent in architecture.

stand upright but no independent power of

own, no power

their

is

buildings seem to have just enough

transcend the rudimentary

to

no power

to

impose sovereign laws of

themselves.
II

Where the objective world of poetry is present, a

poem will contain something more than the purely
personal, something that holds the poem together,
something that detaches
it

a freedom of

we

will not

have

us on

."

life

Because
into

it,

made

come

will

go out and search for

"Dammerung

(see before, p. 143)

senkte

comes

it
it

it:

it

of

its

is

more

has a

sich

it is

von

towards
a being

it is

not remote and aloof.

more than

the poet himself put

own, yet

contains

to us:

it.

floating

own, quite apart from the poet:

its

with a

to

poem

Goethe's

oben

from the poet and gives

it

own. The poem

its

poetic than the poet could have

life

of

its

own

preceding and also

surviving the poet.

This extra and independent

life

can also survive

the weaknesses of the poem. Defects are possible even

in a great

poem, human rather than poetic

due

fundamental rupture in the

to the

ture as such. For this reason the

defects,

human

struc-

empty passages

in

Man and Language

150

Gotthelf, for example,

seem

in the world of nature,

and caused by the structure of

man
It

rather than by a weakness in Gotthelf himself.

because of this extra, independent

is

poem

tained in a true

that

within

it

A poem

that contains

something of the being of the eternal world

takes us to the beginnings

and origins of man, which

bound up

are impossible to fathom since they are

with Creation

itself.

Once

poem

as easy to analyze

it is

poem

perfect

same but

the

relation-

all

and explain

machine.

as a

The same
changing forms. The

goes on creating poetry.

words are revealed in ever

poem remains

has lost

from which true poems

ship with the eternal world

come,

con-

life

impossible fully to

is

it

explain or interpret a true poem.

drought

as natural as a

it

changes in the course of

time, thus remaining alive in every age. It

the beloved in Goethe's

poem who remains

however often her outward form

like

is

the

same

changed:

is

Formen magst du dich verstecken,

Doch, Allerliebste, gleich erkenn' ich dich;
Du magst mit Zauberschleiern dich bedecken,
In tausend

Allgegenwartige, gleich erkenn' ich dich.

Poems

of inferior quality are swept

away by the
Dehmel

passage of time. For example, the poetry of

disappeared within roughly ten years of his death,

though no
pendent
world, a

had attacked

critic

life

that

poem

it.

Through

the inde-

comes into a poem from the eternal

is

able to reach out

beyond

draws something of the objective world into

that

it

scribes.

contains

more than

it

actually

itself;

it

itself so

names or

de-

The

World

Pre-given

of Poetry

151

Poetry lives and grows by attracting other things

to itself.

Such poetry

moment

of time,

it

beyond the present

carries itself

already bears future time within

"Poets seem to be alone, but they always have

itself.

presentiments," says Holderlin.

The

horrors of the

first

World War were

contained in some of the poems of Trakl.

poem

of this kind also has the

power of pointing

must be taken

the things in the present which

the future.

It

poem

to

into

can have the power of taking the present

into the future, the

In a

already

prophetic

power of

actually shaping history.

of this kind a historical fact

may

be pro-

jected forward into a sphere transcending the historical.

he

When,
is

for example, Virgil extols the little child,

referring to the child of the Imperial house, but

the praise reaches out beyond Virgil himself to the

divine child Jesus

When

poem

world,

eternal

quality. In

it

who

is

come.

to

the independent

lacks

the

lacks

also

life

of the

specifically

poetic

many modern poems what

they express

merely happens to be expressed in words. This could

be expressed in other ways, by an action, a mathematical formula or by a machine. Poetry
leveled

down

acquires

its

to a purely

exclusive

is

thereby

mechanical function. Poetry

and unique quality from

its

connection with the pre-given eternal world. Today,

poetry

is

uncertain of

cally poetry at all

but

itself,
is

because

any other medium. The poetry that

poetry, seems so insecure that

it

is

not

specifi-

is

not specifically

would only need the

decree of a dictator to suppress

poems

it

capable of being replaced by

it

altogether.

of Goethe, of Holderlin, of Trakl,

The

would con-

Man and Language

152

tinue to sing of their

own

accord, out-singing the

dictator's decree.

The poems

that have

world are not

they are

no connection with the

though they come from

all related,

authors and different periods.

eternal

from one another;

essentially diflferent

They form

different

single

conglomeration, which increases as though by mere

proliferation,

perishes
efforts to

produces

in

make

It

or

were in a horizontal
eternal

person
farcical

line,

re-

whereas

world comes down from

breaks the horizontal flow of things, coming

direcdy from the Origin, and every

the

makes

This kind of poetry

itself visible.

from the

The

creatures.

agglomeration,

itself as it

the poetry

above.

unicellular

like
this

first to

poem seems

to be

have come from the Origin and appeared

among men.

Ail the real poets are related to one an-

other because they

come from this original and etersame person can underpoets as Li-Tai-Pe and Ronsard and

nal world and therefore the

stand such diverse

Holderlin.

Ill

That which

is

anterior to the

poem

is

but as Malherbe wrote, "les fruits passeront

ses

that

des fleurs."

The poem

which precedes

justified

it.

important,
la

promes-

more important than

That which is anterior is

by the poem, for

is

it

exists

for the sake of

poem of whose texture it forms a part.

Compared with that which is anterior to

the

the person of the

significant the

poet

is

power of the

everything arises from

it,

unimportant.
"anterior,"

the poem,

The more

and the more

especially in the early ages

The
of poetry, the

when

more

of Poetry

153

the person of the poet himself

Jean Paul observes, "The self-forgetfulness

recedes.

Greek poets

of the

World

Pre-given

they do

often very moving,

is

remember themselves,

it

and even
merely as

is

no modern

the object of the object. Thus, for example,

poet v^ould have represented himself so simply and

so unassumingly as did Phidias

Minerva, as an old

man

on the

This anterior, objective substance

lacking in

where
is

it is

lacking.

their

modern

shield of his

throwing a stone."
is

almost wholly

is

an emptiness

There

poetry.

Few people are even aware that it

But when the poets notice the emptiness,

lacking.

poems become

song sung around what

lacking. Rilke has within

him

is

the space that has been

emptied of objective substance; the other poets have

even thrown away the emptiness. In reading Rilke one
has the impression that he could have had the objective substance, but

he refused

to be the poet of this age,

objective substance.

to

have

it.

He

wanted

which no longer has the

He was

the poet

who

deliberately

remained unborn, because the whole age was unborn.

He was
It
is

generous, unselfish.

must be asked whether the emptiness, the

abyss,

not trivialized by the beauty of Rilke's poetry? Does

not the abyss cease to be menacing and dangerous

because of this poetry?

wooed,
to

felt to

be

Is

full of

the abyss not cherished and

charm, since

it

has given

rise

such beautiful poetry?

Medieval

around an

poets,

Dante,

for

example,

abyss, the abyss of hell,

poetry around

but

it

God's creation, even in

made

also

sang

beautiful

it

was the beauty

its

abysses, that they expressed

that

is

in

Man and Language

154

The

in their poetry.

abyss existed as an abyss,

not absorbed by the beauty of the poetry,

vanish in that beauty, as

it

it

it

was

did not

does in Rilke's poetry.

Possibly the reason for Rilke's unrest and nervousness

was that

who wanted

he,

to

true

live

life,

sensed the discrepancy between the horror of the abyss

and the beauty of

which beauty he

poetry, in

his

which he

fear of the abyss itself, the abyss

lost his

honestly wanted to face.

The

poetry, but the poet himself

abyss vanished in the

was

also lost.

Paul Klee wrote:

Mein Stern ging auf

Tief unter meinen Fiissen.
Wo haust im Winter mein Fuchs,
Wo schlaft meine Schlange?

The

star that is

"below."

no longer seen above, has burrowed

sometimes seems

It

as

though

this

kind of

poet were trying to hide himself in a burrow, and

to

forever

disappear

industrialized
school,
tine.

by

the

therein.

But the emptiness

literature

of

and

Sartre

is

his

becomes part of the universal technical rou-

it

This

is

a degradation of the emptiness.

IV

How

can the pregiven, objective substance of poetry

be rediscovered by the poet,

how

can

might be thought that when the other

nomena which form

religion,

human

part of the basic

relationships,

it

return?

It

original phe-

human

structure,

man's relationship with

nature and the "folk," are taken for granted again as

part of the basic

human

order, poetry too will return

The
to

its

World

Pre-given

of Poetry

155

pregiven substance, or rather that the original

man must

substance of poetry will become so clear that

inevitably accept

it.

It

is

possible that this

what

faced with the reality of

bility is insignificant.

so intensive that

is

That which

is

The

man

missing

is

is

reality of

what

bound

to pull

is

so

missing

is

up

tremendous that

it

the feeble possibility completely in the shade.

which
eye

is

is

missing confronts

bound

But

if

to rest

on

it,

sucked

in.

If

objective

man

so clearly that his

takes

which what

substance

what

seriously, if Tie is^_constantly

is

will

and

is

be

missing,

almost

lacking completely

aware that the lack of

the pregiven substance in his structure

ill,

puts

That

then a space will be delimited,

a space will be created into

pregiven,

here.

it.

the eye always gazes at this emptiness,

constantly embraces

the

man

but

so,

is

lacking, this possi-

is

making him

the seriousness of his awareness will reach by

its

very truth to the truth of the creative beginnings of

things and hence to the pregiven original substance.

40

XO

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