There are moments when a simple riddle reveals more about our moral life than a shelf of political theory. The old puzzle about the traveler going to Saint Ives is one of those small, durable stories that has survived precisely because it exposes something about how we see the world — and how easily we mis-see it.
It is a riddle about counting, yes, but more fundamentally, it is a riddle about attention, assumption and the moral imagination. It asks us not only what we know, but how we know it; not only what we see, but what we fail to see.
The riddle
The riddle is familiar: A lone traveler meets a man with seven wives, each wife with seven sacks, each sack with seven cats, each cat with seven kits. The question — “How many were going to Saint Ives?” — has generated centuries of debate. Some answer “one,” insisting that only the narrator is traveling to the town. Others argue for “zero,” noting the narrator never explicitly says he is going anywhere at all. Still others multiply the numbers and conclude that the entire entourage is on the road to Saint Ives, yielding a total in the thousands. And a final group insists the riddle is unanswerable because the information is incomplete.
What fascinates me is not which answer is correct, but what the range of answers reveals about the human mind. The riddle is a small parable about the limits of perception. It exposes how quickly we assume, how readily we fill in gaps and how easily we impose our own expectations on a situation. It is a reminder that the world is not simply given to us; it must be interpreted. And interpretation is always a moral act.
Joe Marlow
This is where the moral imagination enters. The moral imagination is not fantasy or sentimentality. It is the disciplined capacity to see the moral shape of a situation — to perceive what is present, what is implied, what is hidden and what is possible. It is the ability to see the world truthfully and to act within it responsibly. It is, in a sense, the opposite of the quick arithmetic that the Saint Ives riddle tempts us to perform. The riddle invites us to count; the moral imagination invites us to see.
Four lessons
The first lesson the riddle teaches is that attention is a moral discipline.
Most people rush to multiply the numbers. They focus on the sacks and cats and kits, as if the moral weight of the story lies in the arithmetic. But the real question is not about quantity; it is about direction. Who is actually traveling? Who is merely encountered? What is the narrator trying to tell us?
The moral imagination begins with the willingness to slow down, to attend to what is actually there rather than what we expect to find. It is the discipline of resisting the easy answer in favor of the truthful one.
The second lesson is that assumptions are morally consequential. We assume the man and his wives are traveling in the same direction as the narrator. We assume the narrator’s path is literal, not metaphorical. We assume the riddle is about math, not meaning.
These assumptions are harmless in a puzzle, but in the real world they can be devastating. Much of our political and civic life is shaped by unexamined assumptions — about who belongs, who is trustworthy, who is dangerous and who is deserving.
Much of our political and civic life is shaped by unexamined assumptions — about who belongs, who is trustworthy, who is dangerous and who is deserving.
The moral imagination requires us to interrogate these assumptions, to ask what we are projecting onto others and to consider how our interpretations shape our actions.
The third lesson is that perspective matters. The riddle is told from the vantage point of a single traveler. We know nothing about the man with seven wives — where he is going, why he is traveling and what burdens he carries. We know nothing about the wives themselves, the sacks, the cats or the kits. They are presented to us as objects to be counted, not as subjects with their own stories.
The moral imagination invites us to consider the interior lives of others, to imagine their perspectives and to recognize their humanity. It is the capacity to see the Other not as an obstacle or a curiosity but as a fellow traveler.
This is not merely an intellectual exercise. It is a moral posture. It is the difference between a politics of domination and a politics of dignity. It is the difference between a society that treats people as problems to be solved and a society that treats them as neighbors to be understood. The moral imagination is what allows us to see beyond the surface of things — to perceive the complexity, the vulnerability, the hope and the fear that shape human life.
The fourth lesson is that interpretation is never neutral. The answer we give to the Saint Ives riddle reveals something about how we see the world.
Do we assume the narrator is alone? Do we assume the others are irrelevant? Do we assume the story is straightforward? Or do we sense that something more is happening — that the riddle is not simply about counting but about seeing?
The moral imagination teaches us that our interpretations are shaped by our character, our formation, our fears and our hopes. It reminds us that we are responsible not only for our actions but for the way we perceive the world.
The moral imagination
This is why the moral imagination is so central to the work of formation, leadership and civic life. In a polarized society, the temptation is always to reduce — to simplify, to categorize and to flatten. We turn people into types, stories into slogans and institutions into caricatures. The moral imagination resists this flattening. It insists on complexity. It insists on humility. It insists on the dignity of the other. It insists that the world is richer, more layered and more morally demanding than our first impressions suggest.
In the end, the riddle is not about how many people are going to Saint Ives. It is about how many ways there are to see.
The Saint Ives Riddle, in its simplicity, becomes a small training ground for this work. It teaches us to attend, to question, to imagine and to interpret. It reminds us that the world is not a puzzle to be solved but a reality to be perceived with care. It invites us to cultivate the habits of mind and heart that allow us to see truthfully and act faithfully.
In the end, the riddle is not about how many people are going to Saint Ives. It is about how many ways there are to see. It is about the difference between counting and understanding, between assumption and attention, between perception and imagination. It is a reminder that the moral life begins not with certainty but with curiosity — with the willingness to ask, not “How many?” but “What is really happening here?”
And perhaps that is the deeper invitation: To become the kind of person who does not rush to multiply sacks and cats and kits, but who pauses long enough to see the traveler, the wives, the burdens they carry and the road they share. To become the kind of person whose imagination is shaped not by fear or efficiency but by humility, compassion and truth. To become, in other words, a person capable of seeing the world as it is — and as it might yet be.
Joe D. Marlow is a theologian, historian, educator and writer retired in South Lyon, Mich. This essay will be part of his fifth book, Mapping the Terrain of America: Essays in Moral Imagination, to be published later this year.