[2] I was told by angels that the earliest kind of speech of all peoples on each world was by facial expression; and it originated from two areas, the lips and the eyes. The reason why this was the earliest form of speech was that the face was designed to portray what a person thinks and wants. The face is therefore called the picture and indicator of the mind. Another reason is that in the most ancient or earliest times honesty demanded that what a person wanted should shine out from his face, and no one thought of doing anything else or wanted to do so. Thus too the affections of the mind and the thoughts arising from them could be vividly and fully displayed. This enabled many things to be presented simultaneously to the eye, as it were, in visible form. This kind of speech in consequence was as much better than verbal speech as sight is better than hearing: the difference between seeing the countryside and envisaging it by listening to a verbal description.

They also said that this kind of speech matched the speech of the angels, with whom human beings were in the habit of communicating in those times. In fact, when the face speaks, or the mind speaks through the face, angelic speech reaches its final, natural form in a person; but not when the mouth speaks in words. Anyone can grasp that the most ancient people could not have had verbal speech, since the words of language are not directly inherent in things, but need to be invented and applied to them; and this could only happen over a period of time.#

[3] This kind of speech lasted so long as honesty and uprightness were observed by people. But as soon as people started to think one thing in their minds and say another, which happened when people began to love themselves and not their neighbour, speech in words began to increase, while the face conveyed nothing or told lies. As a result the inward shape of the face changed, contracting and hardening, and beginning to be almost devoid of life. But its outward shape, fired by self-love, began to look alive to men's eyes. For what lies hidden underneath devoid of life is invisible to human eyes, but can be seen by angels, who can see what lies within.

This is what the faces are like of those who think one thing and say another. Pretence, hypocrisy, trickery and guile - which to-day pass for tactfulness - cause such results. But in the next life things are different; there you are not allowed to speak otherwise than you think. In fact, any disagreement is clearly perceptible in each single word; and when it is noticed the spirit who displays such disagreement is ejected from the company and punished. Afterwards various methods are applied to bring him back to speaking as he thinks and to thinking what he wants, so as to restore unanimity to his mind and banish division. The effect is, if he is good, that he wants what is good and thinks and speaks the truth as the result of good; if he is wicked, he wants what is evil and thinks and speaks falsely as the result of evil. Until this happens, a good man cannot be raised to heaven, nor a wicked one cast into hell. This is to ensure that hell contains nothing but wickedness and the falsity it produces, heaven nothing but good and the truth it produces. # The Most Ancient people in this world were able to speak using the face and lips by means of inner breathing (AC 607, 1118, 7361). The inhabitants of certain other worlds have a similar manner of speaking (AC 4799, 7359, 8248, 10587). On the perfection and excellence of this manner of speaking (AC 7360, 10587, 10708).