1. Each one felt just one part of the animal and took the part for the whole.
2. Each was in a hurry to give his opinion and did not take time to form a good one.
3. Each man was stubborn and probably refused to feel where the others had felt.
If they could be in your place, how would they see themselves? They would see how foolish they had been, and each would see that the others were as nearly right as he himself was.
What lesson for ourselves can we learn from this? It teaches us not to be in a hurry in giving our opinions.
What do we learn from the dispute mentioned in the last verse? We learn from it that, when our own opinions about anything are firmly fixed, it does no good to argue about the matter.
In what way could they have arrived at the same conclusions? If each had done all that each of the others did, they would have agreed about the elephant.
In what way were these men really blind? They could not, or would not, see the viewpoint of others. There may be a mental blindness, as well as a physical blindness.
Here are two lines that you may memorize, as they fit the lesson very well:
Convince a man against his will,
He's of the same opinion still.