Expression (n.) is a remarkable intentional instrument: like a mirror it reflects every other intentionality in form and content, but colours it in its own way, working into it the form of the conceptual.
Expression (n.) is not productive: its whole service is exhausted in expressing — yet it is no overlaid varnish or covering garment, but a mental formation that acts on what it expresses and is acted on in turn.
Expression (n.) is general by essence, so it can never mirror everything expressed: "I would like" says the wish only in general form, and whole dimensions — clearness, attention — never express themselves at all.
Expression (n.) is no varnish laid over sense; it is a mental formation that acts back on the layer beneath it.
Expression (n.) is unproductive: it can only reissue a sense already constituted, and yet, adding nothing, it is rigorously new.
Expression (n.) is often partial, like a cry of "the carriage!" that names a whole arrival by one part of it.