In disciplining the mind one of the first rules should be, to lose no opportunity of tracing words to their origin; one good consequence of which will be, that he will be able to use the language of sight without being enslaved by its affections. He will at least save himself from the delusive notion, that what is not imageable is not conceivable.¹⁹

To emancipate the mind from the despotism of the eye is the first step towards the emancipation from the influences and intrusions of the senses, sensations and passions generally. Thus most effectively is the power of abstraction to be called forth, strengthened and familiarized, and it is this power of abstraction that chiefly distinguishes the human understanding from that of the higher animals–and in the different degrees in which this power is developed, the superiority of man over man largely consists.

Hence we are to account for the preference which the divine Plato gives to expressions taken from objects of the ear, as terms of Music and Harmony, and in part at least for the numerical symbols, in which Pythagoras clothed his philosophy.

(from What Coleridge Thought by Owen Barfield)