a which has for its object the word as one whole
is a derived one, in so far as it depends on the determination of one
sense in many letters[203]; in the same way as the idea of a wood, an
army, and so on. But--our opponent may here object--if the word were
nothing else but the letters which in their aggregate become the object
of one mental act, such couples of words as jara and raja or pika and
kapi would not be cognised as different words; for here the same letters
are presented to consciousness in each of the words constituting one
couple.--There is indeed, we reply, in both cases a comprehensive
consciousness of the same totality of letters; but just as ants
constitute the idea of a row only if they march one after the other, so
the letters also constitute the idea of a certain word only if they
follow each other in a certain order. Hence it is not contrary to reason
that the same letters are cognised as different words, in consequence of
the different order in which they are arranged.

The hypothesis of him who maintains that the letters are the word may
therefore be finally formulated as follows. The letters of which a word
consists--assisted by a certain order and number--have, through
traditional use, entered into a connexion with a definite sense. At the
time when they are employed they present themselves as such (i.e. in
their definite order and number) to the buddhi, which, after having
apprehended the several letters in succession, finally comprehends the
entire aggregate, and they thus unerringly intimate to the buddhi their
definite sense. This hypothesis is certainly simpler than the
complicated hypothesis of the grammarians who teach that the spho/t/a is
the word. For they have to disregard what is given by perception, and to
assume something which is never perceived; the letters apprehended in a
definite order are said to manifest the spho/t/a, and the spho/t/a in
its turn is said to manifest the sense.

Or let it even be admitted that the letters are different ones each time
they are pronounced; yet, as in that case we necessarily must assume
species of letters as the basis of the recognition of the individual
letters, the function of conveying the sense which we have demonstrated
in the case of the (individual) letters has then to be attributed to the
species.

From all this it follows that the theory according to which the
individual gods and so on originate from the eternal words is
unobjectiona