6 Blind Men & the Elephant

John Godfrey Saxe, a nineteenth century American lawyer, poet, and editor, once wrote a delightful poem about an old story allegedly from the country of India. He called it “The blind men and the Elephant.” The poem tells about six blind men who came upon an elephant and tried to determine what such a creature was like by just touching it. The first man, Saxe wrote, felt the elephant’s side and concluded that the animal was like a wall.

The second man happened to grab the elephant’s tusk, so he said the elephant was like a spear. The third man ran his hands down the elephant squirming trunk and declared that an elephant was like snake. The fourth blind man totally disagreed, because he had reached his arms around the elephant’s leg and was sure that an elephant was like a tree. The fifth man found the elephant’s huge ear, so he told the others that clearly an elephant was like a fan.

Finally the sixth man discovered the elephant’s swinging tail and shouted that the elephant was like a rope. The six men began to argue loudly and became angrier with each other. Each man stubbornly thought he was right and none of them were about to give up their opinion. Every one of them was right, but at the same time they were all wrong.

You cannot hold onto just one part of the elephant and know what rest of it looks like. The same is true with the question of: Why so many denominations? Some people hold onto just one part of the elephant and do not seek to know what the rest of it looks like. But holding onto just one part of the elephant only gives one piece of the puzzle.

One must search the whole elephant to see what it actually looks like.