 Now take for example a lecture given on a scientific topic. There are, in Collingwood’s view, actually at least two things: The lecture as a created thing, and the lecture as a particular sound-event. The former may be complete in advance of, or indeed without ever, being uttered or written down: the actual speech-event, as a sequence of noise, enables a suitably equipped listener to reconstruct the created thing is his own mind, therefore to grasp its scientific content, but is inessential to it. And so it is with works of art. A tune, for example, needn’t be sung, played or written down in order to exist. Thus Collingwood: