One day, four blind men came into contact with an elephant for the very first time.
The first blind man grabbed the elephant's trunk. "An elephant is long, thin and flexible", he said.
"You are wrong", declared his friend, who had hold of the elephant's leg. "It is tall and solid like a tree trunk. I can't put my arms around the elephant."
"What are you two talking about?" asked the third blind man, who was feeling the elephant's side. "An elephant is large and flat and very hard. An elephant is like a wall."
"You are all wrong!" cried the blind man who had grabbed the elephant's tail. "An elephant is like a piece of rope. I can hold it in one hand."
The four blind men continued to argue about the elephant. They did not realize that all of them were right, yet all of them were wrong. They did not know that they each had only part of the picture, not the whole.
