8249. Angels have told me that the kind of speech used first of all on any planet was facial, and that it was expressed by two parts of the face, the lips and the eyes. This kind of speech came first because the face has been altogether made to portray the things a person thinks or wills, which also is why the face has been called a portrayer and indicator of the mind, and in addition because in most ancient or earliest times people were open and sincere, 8118; no one thought or wished to think anything other than what he wished to shine from his face. That being so, the affections in a person's mind and the ideas in his thinking could also be conveyed vividly and completely; thus they also presented themselves to the eye as if in a visible form, very many simultaneously. This kind of speech therefore was as superior to speech consisting of spoken words as sight is to hearing, that is, as seeing a landscape, for example, to hearing a description of it. The angels added that this kind of speech matched the speech used by angels, with whom people in those earliest times were also in contact. They also said that it is angelic speech present with a person - the last and lowest natural form of it - when the face speaks - that is, when the mind speaks by means of the face; it is one person's inward sight or thought present in another's. But such speech is not present when the mouth utters spoken words. Regarding the use of speech like that by the most ancient people on our planet, see 607, 608, 1118, 1120, 7361. Anyone may also see that speech consisting of spoken words could not have existed with the most ancient people; for the words of spoken language were not infused directly into the tongue but had to be invented and applied to actual things, and this could be done only with the passage of time.