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Until writing was invented, man lived in acoustic space. Boundless, directionless, horizon-less, in the dark of the mind. In the world of emotion. By primordial intuition. By terror. Speech is a social chart of this bond.
The goose quill put an end to talk. It abolished mystery, it gave architecture and towns. It brought roads and armies, bureaucracy. It was the basic metaphor with which the cycle of civilization began. The step from the dark into the light of the mind. The hem that filled the parchment page and built a city.
Writing did not merely record language. It was a totally new medium of expression and communication which the spoken word came, in turn, to imitate. Writing encouraged the analytical mode of thinking, the emphasis upon lineality, continuity, and connectedness. In other words, visuality.
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