Читать книгу Delsarte System of Oratory - Delaumosne - Страница 59

The semeiotic is the science of signs, and hence the science of the form of gesture. Its object is to give the reason for the forms of gesture according to the types that characterize it, the apparatus that modifies it, and the figures that represent it.

There are three sorts of types in man: constitutional or formal, fugitive or passional, and habitual.

The constitutional type is that which we have at birth.

The passional type is that which is reproduced under the sway of passion.

The habitual types are those which, frequently reproduced, come to modify even the bones of the man, and give him a particular constitution.

Habit is a second nature, in fact, a habitual movement fashions the material and physical being in such a manner as to create a type not inborn, and which is named habitual.

To recognize constitutional types, we study the movements of the body, and the profound action which the habit of these movements exercises upon the body; and, as the type produced by these movements is in perfect analogy with the formal, constitutional types, we come through this analogy to infer constant phenomena from the passional form. Thus all the formal types are brought back to the passional types.

Passional types explain habitual types, and these last explain constitutional types. Thus, when we know the sum of movements possible to an organ, when we know the sense of it, we arrive at that semeiotic through which the reason of a form is perfectly given.