Be this as it may, the main point of Mendelssohn’s distinction is that because its signs are arbitrary and can therefore be associated with any conceivable content, “the poet can express everything of which our soul can have a clear concept,” while the arts that employ natural signs are limited to the expression of those ideas and emotions the natural signs for which can be replicated in their specific media; each of these arts “must content itself with that portion of natural signs that it can