Procrastes was a very generous man, but logical, a very rich man, but logical. How can a man who is logical be very generous? His generosity will also be poisoned by his logic. He was rich, many guests used to visit him, but no guest ever returned from his palace. What happened to the guests?
Procrastes had a bed made of gold with precious stones studded all over it. There existed no other bed in the world more valuable. And that was the bed that was used for the guests. Whenever a guest lay down on the bed Procrastes would come and look. If the guest was a little shorter than the bed he had four very strong men stretch the guest from both ends so that he became consistent in size with the bed, not smaller. Of course the guest would die…. If the guest was longer than the bed, that too happened sometimes, then he would cut off the head or the feet of the guest. Because the bed was so valuable, the guest had to fit with the bed, the bed was not to fit with the guest.
That is the whole point in logic: life has to attune itself to logic, not logic to life. Logic exists in itself,life has to attune itself to it; logic doesn’t exist for life, life exists for logic.
No guest ever came out of the house alive. No guest can ever come out of the house of logic alive– that is the meaning of the story.
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