I got off my knees and folded the map, thinking as I did so how total is our trust in maps. We believe what they tell us about solid ground, about earth, rock, water, forests, buildings. We trust in maps because when we test them out, on a walk or a drive, we find, generally speaking, that they are telling the truth. Even if some detail is wrong it doesn’t shake our general confidence in maps. And yet they are only pictures. They are not the real terrain, only representations of it. But our inclination is nearly always to believe the map.
