2882. Through speech Man becomes acquainted with or learns to know himself; through it he becomes a self-substantial essence, which resembles God, because it creates for itself its world, and recognizes itself, i. e. speaks.
2883. Words are forms of our body mathematically laid down.
2884. A single world is dead, so also are many.
2885. Words, which are connected together according to organic laws, form an organic system, are at once alive, and have a meaning.
2886. Speech originates gradually like the organs, like Man. Speech grows like a plant; at first it is only root, next it puts forth a stem, then leaves, and finally blossoms, when it is the perfect expression of the animal body.
2887. The organ of speech is composed of the three terrestrial organs of sense, the air-, water-, and earth-sense.
2888. The air-organs are the principal medium, because they must produce the sonorous figures; the tongue imparts to them the specific modification; but the lips and jaws, as being motor members, afford the articulation or the movement proper. The lungs and nose breathe out the tones; the tongue digests them; the lips move them, and fashion them into perfect bodies—words.
2889. A word is at once for itself a regularly inter-articulated body. The sounds are its members, its organs or fundamental formations.
2890. Speaking is a gentle respiration, carried on by the mouth, nose, and limbs or jaws.
2891. As respiration has a special thorax, so also has speaking. The speech-(or voice-) thorax is the larynx.