Speech is human nature itself, with none of the artificiality of written language.

Whitehead contrasts spoken language with writing to emphasize how speech arises organically from lived human interaction. Speech is immediate, embodied, and responsive—shaped by tone, timing, gesture, and the social situation—whereas writing tends to be more deliberate, edited, and governed by conventions that can distance language from spontaneous feeling and thought. The remark fits Whitehead’s broader interest in process and experience: what is most “human” is not a static product but an activity unfolding in time. The quote also implicitly warns against treating written forms as the sole or highest standard of meaning, since they can conceal the dynamic, relational character of communication.