Samuel Taylor Coleridge, letter to William Godwin, 1800

Is thinking impossible without arbitrary signs? and—how far is the word ‘arbitrary’ a misnomer? Are not words etc parts and germinations of the Plant? And what is the law of their Growth?—In something of this order I would endeavor to destroy the old antithesis of Words and Things, elevating, as it were, words into Things, and living Things too. [Via]