Philology - The Live Science of Speech - Books 3 & 4

As a gift, speech is whatever we say, in the interest, specifically, of our greater human being, which implies an ongoing change of heart, so that everything that makes a difference to us makes a difference at the same time to the seat of our emotions and will, and so that enough makes a difference to us to prevent ourselves from stagnating and to keep our heart from hardening, incapable of adaptation and response. As an achievement, speech is a case of our giving vocal utterance to what would otherwise occur to us as stupidity, which we will wish to be rid of, so first we have to identify it. We are spurred on to do this by the acquired insight into every case and instance of stupidity as potential speech, given the sort of understanding we intend to develop here. Some of our science will therefore depend on a thoroughgoing analysis of various symptoms of stupidity and on the critique of it - of necessity a very gentle critique - as the seedbed of practical occasions and particular acts of speech.