Another source of the idea of a shadow being the object of our thought is this: We imagine the shadow to be a picture the intention of which can not be questioned, that is, a picture which we don't interpret in order to understand it, but which we understand without interpreting it. Now there are pictures of which we should say that we interpret them, that is, translate them into a different kind of picture, in order to understand them; and pictures of which we should say that we understand them immediately, without any further interpretation. If you see a telegram written in cipher, and you know the key to this
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cipher, you will, in general, not say that you understand the telegram until || before you have translated it into ordinary language. Of course you have only replaced one kind of symbols for another; and yet if now you read the telegram in your language no further process of interpretation will take place. ‒ ‒ ‒ Or rather, you may now, in certain cases, again translate this telegram, say into a picture; but then too you have only replaced one set of symbols by another.