As Roran watched, the man's arms, neck, and chest shriveled, and his bones appeared in sharp relief-from the bowlike curve of his collarbones to the hollow saddle of his hips, where his stomach hung like an empty waterskin. His lips puckered and drew back farther than they were intended to over his yellow teeth, baring them in a grisly snarl, while his eyeballs deflated as if they were engorged ticks being squished empty of blood, and the surrounding flesh sank inward.
The facts of nature are what they are, but we can only view them through the spectacles of our mind. Our mind works largely by metaphor and comparison, not always (or often) by relentless logic. When we are caught in conceptual traps, the best exit is often a change in metaphor _ not because the new guideline will be truer to nature (for neither the old nor the new metaphor lies __ut there_ in the woods), but because we need a shift to more fruitful perspectives, and metaphor is often the best agent of conceptual transition.
Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History
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The facts of nature are what they are, but we can only view them through the spectacles of our mind. Our mind works largely by metaphor and comparison, not always (or often) by relentless logic. When we are caught in conceptual traps, the best exit is often a change in metaphor _ not because the new guideline will be truer to nature (for neither the old nor the new metaphor lies __ut there_ in the woods), but because we need a shift to more fruitful perspectives, and metaphor is often the best agent of conceptual transition.
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