of the world is the denaturalization of language. He turns the Symbol into a sign and the sign into a convention. The idea of convention appeals to moderns because it redesignates everything once thought to be sacred as a "construct" amenable to being reassembled into something more democratic and equitable.
We need to be reminded that ancient traditions held words to be sacred in origin and not mere arbitrary signs. As René Guénon explains in "Word and Symbol"
The philosopher Berkeley was not wrong, therefore, when he said that the world is 'the language that the infinite Spirit speaks to finite spirits'; but he was wrong to believe that this language is only a collection of arbitrary signs, for in reality there is nothing arbitrary even in human language, every signification at the origin necessarily having its basis in some natural conformity or harmony between the sign and the signified. It is because Adam had received from God the knowledge of the nature of all living beings that he was able to give them their names (Genesis II: 19, 20); and all the ancient traditions are in agreement that the true name of a being is one with its nature or its very essence.
