John Godfrey Saxe's ( 1816-1887) version of the famous Indian legend
It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.
The First approach'd the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!"
The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, -"Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!"
The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!"
The Fourth reached out his eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he,
"'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!"
The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"
The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Then, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!"
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
I pulled this from the book that I just sent you- so as to not to spoil it, I will try and write my own reflection and not the book's :)
ReplyDeleteI had read this many years ago, somewhere, somehow...I do not remember. I love the visuals and the feelings that you get from each man observing the one piece of the elephant as if it were the only in the world! Plato's "cave" analogy.
I like the reference, in particular, to the elephants...some of the most beautiful, but devastating and dangerous animals if need be. Almost spirituality in a nutshell...pieces of awe and destruction themselves....you must take them all to view the whole picture. You can't choose just one perspective to have, but we do all the time. Sometimes having an awareness such as this can pull you in to a "well, if nothing is really true or untrue, why does anything matter at all" attitude versus a "keep exploring" everything is beautiful attitude.
We, who have all senses, still feel so blind at times...it is a gift to be able to remain open.
If seven, in so many cultures, is the number of completeness...I wonder why they only used six here.
The Plato comparison is right on.
ReplyDeleteI don't see it as the blind men being impaired by their vision, but by their only exploring one aspect of the elephant.
Like Plato's prisoner, this is humanity. We only get to see, touch, taste, hear, and sense a fraction of reality.
But could we "sense" more if we try? If we remain open and listen..or will we always be stuck in the bias in which we were born and conditioned into? I think traveling is so important for this reason!
ReplyDeleteWe can sense more, and maybe with technology and science we can experience and understand a lot more. But in the end, we can only hear, see, feel, taste, and sense a small spectrum of the universe.
ReplyDeleteIn the future, genetic engineering could accelerate evolution to countless new species of humans that might be able to do all sorts of extraordinary things. Imagine being able to use DNA of other animals to enhance our senses. The future will be a wild place.
Yes! Have you ran across this poem before?
ReplyDeleteI had never read it but heard it again for the second time on the audiobook, Whole, I am reading about and it broke it down similar to you:
1. We can appreciate that all of the different men found something different and were able to interpret different things out of them.
2. Like the scientific perspective, if we take all of these minds and put them together then you can have a Whole Elephant.
3. Even though we have all of these perspectives does it still allow us to know where an elephant came from? No.
Regarding your comment on using animal DNA...my brother just emailed me a similar idea in regards to animals eating plants along the ultraviolet spectrum. Way over my head....but involving the purples and blues and heat and snakes seeing heat the way they do. Lol. Yes...I could review this ad interpret better, but it came down to....if we ate more like animals....whole foods alone then could we ultimately see things from their eyes! Since we are animals too....
Funny too- I came across the idea of a reference to the Plato idea, but instead of a man and shadows and cave it was a fish being accidentally caught and then dropped from a net..getting the "other world" view. I hadn't thought this but similar Plato deal.
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