For man to see only what man sees is to see endless reflections of himself, empty of certainty and of certain meaning. As one of the greatest of the Romantic poets, William Blake, put it, “The eye altering, alters all.”4 So if all we know of reality is what we perceive in our minds, and if our minds are hampered by limited perceptions, and our perceptions are distorted by feelings and prejudices and delusions, how can we know the true nature of things? If all we really believe in is the inside of our own heads, how can we know reality is real at all?
