Knowing The Place And Knowing The Way

We seem to hear our own perceptions echoed in the words of great thinkers, and are tempted to make light of their gifts. But while we snatch at the bright and dark fruits they bear, in recognition, as they bear them, we scarcely notice the paths they have cut and/or taken us by. Though we may have been to the berry patch before, we may not have known the way there, or back.

What a world of difference exists between knowing the place, and knowing the way; between knowing a truth, and knowing where it fits. It is as if we were to say that we know a man, when we only know of him, having merely gathered some fragmentary and inchoate impressions of him at a distance.

Catching sight of a vague smear on the horizon and asking yourself, "Land?", is not the same as seeing sand and trees delineated, and exclaiming, "Land!" What we apprehend only squintingly, and from a vast distance, is still vastly unknown to us. Nonetheless, whenever the first man cries, "Land!", every man whose suspicions are thereby confirmed will claim the discovery for his own.