Facts vs. Relevance: I.A. Richards

Facts vs. Relevance: I.A. Richards Facts are no true comforts until we know how to take them; and that is just our problem. They are further items in configurations which we have to learn to understand. This observation long ago gave us our saying about the wood and the trees. There is indeed something reminiscent of the Babes in the Wood in much contemporary scholarship. They wandered up and down and to and fro. They went everywhere but out of the wood and were found in the morning (there was a morning!) under a heap of leaves. The story says that pitying birds buried them so. This seems a pretty fancy. I find it more likely that they collected leaves themselves and perished through unregulated interest in the variety of foliation. In less legendary language we do not develop a mind by giving it more facts but by helping it to judge relevance. It is relevance which tells us which meanings belong with which, and in what configurations, for a valid interpretation. The way to strength...