Language is a third use which Nature subserves to man. Nature is
the vehicle, and threefold degree. 1. Words are signs of natural
facts. 2. Particular natural facts are symbols of particular
spiritual facts. 3. Nature is the symbol of spirit. 1. Words are
signs of natural facts. The use of natural history is to give us
aid in supernatural history: the use of the outer creation, to
give us language for the beings and changes of the inward
creation. Every word which is used to express a moral or
intellectual fact, if traced to its root, is found to be
borrowed from some material appearance. Right means straight;
wrong means twisted. Spirit primarily means wind; transgression,
the crossing of a line; supercilious, the raising of the
eyebrow. We say the heart to express emotion, the head to denote
thought; and thought and emotion are words borrowed from
sensible things, and now appropriated to spiritual nature. Most
of the process by which this transformation is made, is hidden
from us in the remote time when lan