So truth, I say, then, is the reality of things as related to us.
I must make another remark here, in order perfectly to clear the way.
Philosophers and scientific men, a certain class of them, are
perpetually warning us of the dangers of being anthropomorphic. Some
one has said, "Man never knows how anthropomorphic he is." This means,
as you know, that we look at things from the point of view of
ourselves. We see things as men, as anthropoi. This has been erected in
certain quarters into a good deal of a bugbear in the way of thinking.
We are told we can never know the universe really, because we shape
everything into our own likeness, we are anthropomorphic, we look at
everything from the point of view of men.
I grant the charge; but, instead of being frightened by it, I accept it
with content. How else should we look at things except from the point
of view of men, since we are men? We cannot look at them in any other
way. Let us be, then, anthropomorphic. The only thing we need to guard
against is this: we must not assume that we have exhausted the
universe, and that we know it all. This is the evil of a certain type
of anthropomorphism. But I cannot understand why it is important for us
to be anything else but anthropomorphic. I want to know how things look
to a man, what things are to a man, how things affect a man, how I am
to deal with things, being a man.
This is the only matter, let me repeat again, which is of any practical
importance to us, until we become something other than men.
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