ABSTRACT
This chapter talks about the functions or uses of metaphor with a general proposition. The usefulness of the metaphor of growth is determined by the cognitive distance of the object to which the metaphor is applied. For the metaphor serves what might well be called a dogmatic or prophetic function in man's life. Not only is the metaphor of growth integrative in the purely historical sense; it is integrative in its social and psychological effects upon groups—national, ethnic, and other. It is possible to see the integrative-prophetic function of the metaphor of growth serving the cause of Negro nationalism, of so-called Black Power, in the United States. Metaphor of growth and its various corollaries of immanent causation, continuity, differentiation, necessity, and uniform-itarianism were confined to the cognitively distant, to the abstractions. And wholes of classic evolutionary interest, no serious difficulties would plague its use.
