Thus language and art have a common origin, which is the _æsthetic_, that is to say, the affective expression. Comte does not separate these two terms. He takes the word “æsthetic” at once in its etymological and in its modern sense. Our movements, at first involuntary, then voluntary, translate our impressions and react upon them, because they spring from them; that is the humble source from which everything else is derived. With animals it only gives rise to inarticulate vocal sounds, and to a more or less expressive mimicry. In man, it is the principle of language and of art. The latter begins by being a simple imitation. Then the reproduction of objects is perfected. It becomes more faithful “by bringing out better the chief features which were at first obscured by an empirical mixture.” “Idealisation” consists in this. Finally “expression” properly so called is developed, and “style.”[221] Thus, if we call language the whole of the means suitable for the transmission beyond ourselves of our various impressions, this whole forms a system in which the most customary and least expressive portion, language, was at first mingled with the portion which bears the name of art, taking art in its most primitive elements: song and drawing. These two parts became differentiated in evolution. Our social requirements have continually increased the use and extension of the vocal and visual signs which are made use of in active life and in speculative thought. These signs have become simpler and simpler and even abstract: to such an extent that their origin ended by being considered the result of a convention.[222] The primitive parentage of language and of art accounts for many facts which current theories do not explain. For instance, language is not only created but preserved by the people. Grammarians, “even more absurd than logicians,”[223] in general have understood nothing about it. Their claim to authority is amusing. But it is to popular spontaneity, at once conservative and progressive, that our languages owe their admirable rectitude. The basis of each language collects what is essential and universal in the æsthetic evolution of humanity. Hence the magic charm of poetry, the most ancient of all the arts. Words possess a power of evoking images from which the artist draws inexhaustible effects. Often during the long childhood of human reason even the power of words must have seemed to be supernatural: _Nomina Numina_. By dint of considering language as ideologists and logicians, we have forgotten that its nature is emotional and æsthetic. However, even to-day the mysterious power of words has not disappeared. How great is the action of forms of prayer on tender souls, even when faith has deserted them! Next to action itself, language is the most powerful of the exciting causes of feeling, and religions are well aware of this fact. They know how to make use of it to conquer or to retain souls. IV.