THE FORCEPS OF OUR MINDS ARE CLUMSY FORCEPS
AND CRUSH THE TRUTH A LITTLE IN TAKING HOLD OF IT...
Let me give you a rough figure of what I am trying to convey in this
first attack upon the philosophical validity of general terms. You have
seen the result of those various methods of black and white reproduction
that involve the use of a rectangular net. You know the sort of process
picture I mean--it used to be employed very frequently in reproducing
photographs. At a little distance you really seem to have a faithful
reproduction of the original picture, but when you peer closely you find
not the unique form and masses of the original, but a multitude of
little rectangles, uniform in shape and size. The more earnestly you go
into the thing, the closelier you look, the more the picture is lost in
reticulations. I submit, the world of reasoned inquiry has a very
similar relation to the world of fact. For the rough purposes of every
day the network picture will do, but the finer your purpose the less it
will serve, and for an ideally fine purpose, for absolute and general
knowledge that will be as true for a man at a distance with a telescope
as for a man with a microscope, it will not serve at all.
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