thinking in symbols as of less value, as inferior to logical thinking.
And yet what difficulties we have in our own language not to think in symbols! Is not nearly every word a symbol! All abstract ideas must be expressed by words, which at first, and often yet, have a concrete significance (for example, wägen, wiegen, erwägen, gewogen; or gebildet = instructus and gebildet = accomplished—in the sense in which it is used by Goethe = geformt (formed), for example, ein wohlgebildeter Jüngling = a well formed youth.) And what changes in meaning have they not already gone through.[1] The language of poetry prefers to work with words of ambiguous sense in order to give both meanings at the same time. It is not difficult to bring examples of symbols which unite within themselves, partly or wholly, these several qualities.
Letters are symbols, as their development clearly shows. Our mimic and gestures are in great part symbolic.[2] A geographical chart is a symbol. The concrete symbols for abstracts are noteworthy. The eye of God (omniscience), the scales (justice), the cross (Christendom; compare the Vision of Constantine: "in hoc signo vinces"); the color symbols: black = mourning; in the Catholic church violet is the mourning color; red = love, socialism, revolution; the black and red international; the military symbolism (power, intimidation, differences of authority, belonging to various countries); the anchor of hope, the symbolism of coats of arms and standards; one makes a present of something as a "sign of love"; the "fire of love," the pain of separation. The language likes to employ, besides those just named, also condensed symbols. One hopes, for example, to feather one's nest. In pictures of the middle ages and among such old culture folks, so long as their art stood at a more archaic stage (to stand on a step—stufe—is again a symbol of speech) the relative authority is expressed in the persons represented by differences in size, or
- ↑ I refer, for example, to Hermann Paul, "Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte," III Aufl., Halle a. S., Max Niemeyer, 1898. The change in meaning can certainly cause a definite transfer so that the original meaning no longer serves at present. For instance the word "elend" in the middle and new high german.
- ↑ Compare Ernst Jentsch, "Ueber einige merkwürdige mimische Bewegungen der Hand," Zentralbl. für Nervenheilk. u. Psychiatrie, XXVII Jahrg., 15, VIII.
