Analysis of representation and the theory of signs interpenetrate one another absolutely; and when the day came, at the end of the eighteenth century, for Ideology to raise the question of whether the idea or the sign should be accorded primacy, when Destutt could reproach Gerando for having created a theory of signs before defining the idea, this meant that their immediate link was already becoming confused, and that idea and sign would soon cease to be perfectly transparent to one another.