Quote of the Day (6/4/10) (Owen Barfield Week)

Whatever may be thought about the "unrepresented" background of our perceptions, the familiar world which we see and know around us—the blue sky with white clouds in it, the noise of a waterfall or a motor bus, the shapes of flowers and their scent, the gesture and utterance of animals and the faces of our friends—the world too, which (apart from the special inquiry of physics) experts of all kinds methodically investigate—is a system of collective representations. The time comes when we must either accept this as the truth about the world or reject the theories of physics as an elaborate delusion. We cannot have it both ways.
—Owen Barfield, Saving the Appearances 18