Consider A Cow. A Cow Doesn't Have

The Last Level Of Metaphor In The Alice Books Is This: That Life, Viewed Rationally And Without Illusion, Appears To Be A Nonsense Tale Told By An Idiot Mathematician. At The Heart Of Things Science Finds Only A Mad, Never-ending Quadrille Of Mock Turtle Waves And Gryphon Particles. For A Moment The Waves And Particles Dance In Grotesque, Inconceivably Complex Patterns Capable Of Reflecting On Their Own Absurdity.

The Violence And Double-talk In The Alice Books Probably Does No Harm To Children, But The Novels Should Not Be Allowed To Circulate Indiscriminately Among Adults Who Are Undergoing Analysis.

Politicians, Real-estate Agents, Used-car Salesmen, And Advertising Copy-writers Are Expected To Stretch Facts In Self-serving Directions, But Scientists Who Falsify Their Results Are Regarded By Their Peers As Committing An Inexcusable Crime. Yet The Sad Fact Is That The History Of Science Swarms With Cases Of Outright Fakery And Instances Of Scientists Who Unconsciously Distorted Their Work By Seeing It Through Lenses Of Passionately Held Beliefs.

There Is Still A Difference Between Something And Nothing, But It Is Purely Geometrical And There Is Nothing Behind The Geometry.

A God Whose Creation Is So Imperfect That He Must Be Continually Adjusting It To Make It Work Properly Seems To Me A God Of Relatively Low Order, Hardly Worthy Of Any Worship.