10587. First they talked about the form of speech used by people on their planet. They said that people converse with one another by an inward way, unlike others who do so by an outward one. It involves the use of the air and of sight, and is accomplished in the following manner: They think within themselves, and the ideas they think are conveyed to another by a sort of gentle streaming into the inner parts of the ears by a route unknown on our planet except to experts in anatomy. For there is a certain passage inside the mouth, called the Eustachian tube, which is open in the mouth, terminates in the cavity within the ear, and is encased in a thin membrane. Air taken in by breathing and making a slight sound streams gently through this passage, and in this way the utterance of thought is conveyed. This involves the use of the air, as has just been said. Those spirits went on to say that when they are talking to one another in this way they also move their lips, in both a general and a particular way; and the tiny movements that they make with them reach up to the eyes, especially the left eye. Here their inner thought and its vitality reveal themselves. This involves the use of sight, as has just been said. From this it was evident that their face acted in unison with their thought; for the face has been formed to express and represent what the person thinks and loves. (Therefore also the face is called the indicator of the mind, though this applies only to those who are honest, not to those who are dishonest, dissemblers, and hypocrites.) To prove the truth of this to me they were allowed to move my lips and face in a similar way, and [I was allowed] to perceive through the harmony between movement and thought what the objects of their thought were. I asked them whether any on their planet used audible words or articulated sounds when they spoke. They said they did not know what the articulation of sounds was, though they did know what a sound was. Having heard them say these things I could see why they had been guided to the spirits belonging to Mars, to mix with them before they came to me. For they use a similar kind of speech, as may be seen where the speech of the inhabitants and spirits of that planet was the subject, in 7359-7362.