236 The human mind is naturally inclined by the senses to see itself externally in the body, and only with great difficulty does it come to understand itself by means of reflection.
237 This axiom gives us the universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to signify the institutions of mind and spirit. (Vico 78)
#4.
In the first place, every language already contains a mass of metaphors. They arise from the fact that a word which originally signifies only something sensuous is carried over into the spiritual sphere. Fassen, begreifen, and many words, to speak generally, which relate to knowing, have in respect of their literal meaning a purely sensuous content, which then is lost and exchanged for a spiritual meaning, the original sense being sensuous, the second spiritual.[NOTE 20]
But gradually the metaphorical element in the use of such a word disappears and by custom the word changes from a metaphorical to a literal expression, because, owing to readiness to grasp in the image only the meaning, image and meaning are no longer distinguished and the image directly affords only the abstract meaning itself instead of a concrete picture. If, for example, we are to take begreifen in a spiritual sense, then it does not occur to us at all to think of a perceptible grasping by the hand. (Aesthetics 404-5)
Let us begin with something else, from another place in Hegel's corpus. If we recall the opening paragraph of the chapter on "Sense-certainty," we should recognize that the "example" Hegel uses to set up his discussion of metaphor performed a similarly critical function in the Phenomenology by setting the parameters within which the truth of sense knowledge could be examined: "keeping mere apprehension (Auffassen) free from conceptual comprehension (Begreifen)" (Baillie's translation). Of course, we should not be surprised that Hegel draws his example from words which relate to "knowing." But why does he use this particular example? Hamacher mentions a possible solution by teasing out the similarity between the words begreifen (to comprehend) and Begriff (Concept): "To illustrate this process Hegel uses an example that is more than simply an example: with the genesis of the concept of the concept out of the sensuous meaning of the words 'fassen, begreifen': 'to grasp' and 'to comprehend'" (Hamacher 233).
In the metaphorical (Gr. metapherein, "to carry over," "to transfer") process, "something sensuous is carried over into the spiritual sphere." Metaphor is the catalyst of an exchange between the literal and figural meanings of words and, in a sense, processes out or refines their sensuous aspects, converting them into pure "sense" so that their meaning can be preserved in the Concept. What is "lost" in this exchange is the "purely sensuous content." But this is only the first stage (or direction) in the process: as the sensuous aspect of a word is elided in the spiritual, so too, the metaphorical element of the word is used up, ("disappears") and returns to its original function as a literal expression; only now, the literal "directly affords only the abstract meaning." So, we have gone in the opposite direction, from spiritual back to the literal level. But what has happened to the "sensuous" in this exchange between the literal and conceptual levels? According to Hamacher, "the sensuous itself is 'worn down', and thereby loses its original plasticity, and finally through sensuous utilization itself becomes something unsensuous. The coinage of the word, worn down through constant use, becomes the representative of the universal equivalent that is the concept" (Hamacher 235). As always, we are concerned with following the directional signs in Hegel, whether they become the stand-ins or "representative(s)" of the concept, or whether they point to, through and beyond themselves in order to reveal the conception of Concepts prior to the birth of metaphor:
The process of the sensuous is thus actually the process in which the concept comes to itself. Yet the sensuous, sublated into sense through well-worn usage as it is, must remain so harmless, so little virulent that even the difference between the sensuous and its spiritual meaning is no longer perceptible. The sensuous has disappeared in its sense; what initially was nothing but an improper sensuous sign, has now become the proper and authentic expression of its own process, has been appropriated to the truth of its being. The act of conceptual comprehension, of grasping, destroys its own sensuousness and grips itself firmly and securely as its own concept. (Hamacher 233)
Hamacher rigorously follows the thread of what is missing in the Hegelian labyrinth back to its metaphorical center which is where the very process of metaphor comes into being. The sensuous, whether it is "sublated into sense" or "has disappeared into sense," still maintains its power to infect the Concept. For in Hamacher's trenchant reading of Hegel, the sensuous, corporeal side of metaphor always returns, as if the return of the repressed that has not been truly suppressed even when it has undergone supersession (Aufhebung). The final sentence in the passage above is not simply a clever working out of the common elements in the words 'conceptual,' 'comprehension,' 'grasping,' 'grips' and 'concept;' rather, it uses Hegel's own language against itself in order to bring back to consciousness what Hegel has attempted to anaesthetize. It enacts in conceptual terms a belief in the ineradicable sensuousness of metaphorical language.