It will perhaps give a clearer idea of what I am seeking to convey if I
suggest a concrete image for the whole world of a man's thought and
knowledge. Imagine a large clear jelly, in which at all angles and in
all states of simplicity or contortion his ideas are imbedded. They are
all valid and possible ideas as they lie, none incompatible with any. If
you imagine the direction of up or down in this clear jelly being as it
were the direction in which one moves by analysis or synthesis, if you
go down for example from matter to atoms and centres of force and up to
men and states and countries--if you will imagine the ideas lying in
that manner--you will get the beginnings of my intention. But our
instrument, our process of thinking, like a drawing before the discovery
of perspective, appears to have difficulties with the third dimension,
appears capable only of dealing with or reasoning about ideas by
projecting them upon the same plane. It will be obvious that a great
multitude of things may very well exist together in a solid jelly, which
would be overlapping and incompatible and mutually destructive when
projected together upon one plane.
Pages:
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59