180. We experience often enough the instantaneous occurrence of a multitude of ideas, which we afterwards develop in our discourse. We see this in those quick and lively replies excited by a word, or a gesture, which contradicts our opinions or wounds our feelings. In replying, it is impossible for us to speak inwardly, since the instantaneousness with which we reply forbids it. How often, in listening to an argument, do we instantly detect a fault, which we could not explain with words without a long discourse? How often, in proposing a difficulty to ourselves, do we catch its solution in an instant, although we could not possibly explain it without many words? How often do we at the very first glance discover the flaw in a proof, the force of an argument, or the ease with which it can be retorted upon the proposer of it, and all this without occupying a moiety of the intervals necessary to either external or internal locution? Thus it happens that the sudden thought is not unfrequently expressed by a single gesture, a glance of the eye, a nod of the head, a _yes_, or a _no_, an exclamation, or any other similar sign; all far more rapid than it is possible for the words expressive of our thought to be. 181. Let us illustrate this observation by a few examples. Some one says: "All men are naturally equal." The sense of this proposition cannot be known until the word _equal_ is pronounced. How, then, is it that an enlightened and judicious man, will, by an instinctive impulse, answer _no_, will catch the word at the moment, and refute the empty boast of the declaimer with a flow of reasons? Until after the word, naturally the understanding remained in suspense; there was nothing to show the meaning of the proposition, since instead of _equal_, might have been said _weak_, _mortal_, _inconstant_, or any other such word; but so soon as the word _equal_ is pronounced, the understanding says _no_, without having had the time to use an internal or external locution. The exact parallel which some suppose to exist between ideas and speech is, therefore, impossible; and they who defend it are guilty of an exaggeration incompatible with experience. Another asserts, "justice to have no bounds but the limit of power." All who have any idea of morality, at once answer _no_: do they, forsooth, need an inward locution? True, in order to explain what is expressed by this _no_, and upon what it is based, many words are required, and that to reflect upon the proposition one must speak in inwardly; but this is all independent of that intellectual act, signified by the _no_, and which would have been still more briefly expressed had it been possible.