Physical objects we think we see have as much substance as the Gods of Homer

But in point of an epistemological footing the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conception only as cultural posits. The myth of physical objects is epistemologically superior to most in that it has proved more efficacious than other myths as a device for working a manageable structure into the flux of experience.

. Conservatism figures in such choices, and so does the quest for simplicity