"To the gross senses the chair seems solid and substantial. But the gross senses and be refined by means of instruments. Closer observations are made, as the result of which we are forced to conclude that the chair is “really” a swarm of electric charges whizzing about in empty space. ... While the substantial chair is an abstraction easily made from the memories of innumerable sensations of sight and touch, the electric charge chair is a difficult and far-fetched abstraction from certain visual sensations so excessively rare (they can only come to us in the course of elaborate experiments) that not one man in a million has ever been in the position to make it for himself. The overwhelming majority of us accept the electric-charge chair on authority, as good Catholics accept transubstantiation."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
“One and Many,” pp. 8–9
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Related Quotes
"Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarit…"
"À qui il a été beaucoup donné, il sera beaucoup demandé."
"Imperialism is challenged from two sides. On the one hand, there is a rising tide of nationalism within the various e…"
"The religions whose theology is least preoccupied with events in time and most concerned with eternity, have been con…"
"Proverbs are always platitudes until you have personally experienced the truth of them."
"To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs."
"The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human."
"What the cinema can do better than literature or the spoken drama is to be fantastic."
"ONE of the evil results of the political subjection of one people by another is that it tends to make the subject nat…"
"Too much consistency is as bad for the mind as it is for the body. Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to lif…"