Erratum

“ Your conduct, unopposed as you have been, has been peaceable, and such as my intimate knowledge of you led me to expect from you. We are all liable to err; you have committed an error, but it is not a fatal one—it may be retrieved. ”

“ Good father Cardinal, cry thou 'amen' To my keen curses; for without my wrong There is no tongue hath power to curse him right. PANDULPH. There's law and warrant, lady, for my curse. CONSTANCE. And for mine too; when law can do no right, Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong; Law cannot give my child his kingdom here, For he that holds his kingdom holds the law; Therefore, since law itself is perfect wrong, How can the law forbid my tongue to curse? ”

“ For what does it profit him not to be polluted with another’s error if he gives assent to the one who errs? For he evidently assents to him who is in error who does not help him to cut out those things that ought to be reproved. ”

“ We venture, therefore, to lay a statement of our case before you—and you will team from this discourse that we suffer unjustly, and contrary to all law and reason—and we beseech you to bestow some consideration upon us also, that we may cease at length to be slaughtered at the instigation of false accusers. ”

“ It is that tendency of error once countenanced or tolerated to grow into precedent, which has ever enjoined it upon me as a sacred duty to resist its approaches before they have been matured into power ”

“ My last and firm determination is, that I refuse to confess as erroneous the articles which have been truly extracted from my works, and that I refuse to abjure those which have been attributed to me by false witnesses; for to abjure implies that one has held erroneous opinions—it is, in fact, to reject them, and adopt others of a contrary tendency. ”

“ If we have any good in our doctrine, believe it and embrace it, it will do you good. If we have errors, do not embrace them. I have been trying, for almost forty years, to tell the people how to be saved. I have always made this proposition to every man I have conversed with on the subject of truth and error, "If I have errors, I will give ten errors for a truth. ”

“ The only question, therefore, for our consideration must be, whether there exists any such large and unquestionable preponderance either of the better sort or of the worse, as shall give us a right to pronounce a judgment on the whole in their favour or against them, to affirm of them that their preponderating influence and weight is thrown into the balance of the good or of the evil. ”

“ And again, the argument may be reprehended by an invalidating of the other part of it—"But if he is a modest man, when he has been corrected by your accusation he will abandon his error." An enumeration of particulars is understood to be faulty if we either say that something has been passed over which we are willing to admit, or if some weak point has been included in it which can be contradicted, or if there is no reason why we may not honestly admit it. ”

“ Error, the opposite of Truth, names the qualities and effects of what it terms matter, and so rouses the law of belief that holds the preponderance of power in human opinions against Spirit and Truth. ”

“ He learned to pore over law papers, to seek out flaws and errors, to look for any thing that might convey a double meaning, to track the tortuous and narrow paths by which that power which bears the name of Justice reaches the clear light of truth, or falls into the thorny deep of error. ”

“ If I can show you that there is a doubt—a doubt of the faintest or slightest shadow—his lordship will tell you that I have the right to demand a verdict of ‘not guilty,’ and I say that such a doubt cannot but exist. ”

“ For Error, to speak largely, is a false judgment of things, or, an assent unto falsity. Now whether the object whereunto they deliver up their assent be true or false, they are incompetent judges.
For the assured truth of things is derived from the principles of knowledge, and causes which determine their verities. Whereof their uncultivated understandings, scarce holding any theory, they are but bad discerners of verity; and in the numerous track of Error, but casually do hit the point and unity of truth. ”

“ Judgments of reflection seem to be especially subject to error and as such to be compounded into false concepts and to be long entertained as such. In the act of making the judgment there must be judgments of bodies impinging on one another, leading to judgments of apprehension. ”

“ And in that how great, O ye immortal gods! is the error of those men who have desired that law. For the meaner the condition of each judge is, the greater will be the severity of judgment with which he will seek to efface the idea of his meanness ”

“ And again it will be desirable in every cause to mention the nature, or the manner of life, or the pursuits, or the fortune, or some one of those circumstances which are attributed to persons, in connexion with that cause which the speaker says was the motive which induced the man on his trial to do wrong; and also, if one cannot impute anything to him in respect of an exactly corresponding class of faults, to bring the disposition of one's adversary into discredit by reference to some very dissimilar class. ”

“ As the dangerous consequences which follow upon error ought to be presented unto people that they may fly from it, so there are some errors in doctrine which do no less separate from God than profanity of life doth, of which errors this is one—the maintaining of justification by works. 5. It is ordinary for seducers to usher in their errors by some excellent designations as of new lights, a more pure gospel way, and what not, as here they designate their error by the name of another gospel.—Fergusson. ”

“ For if it follows that some vices are not greater than others, because no addition can be made to that chief good which you describe, since it is quite evident that the vices of all men are not equal, you must change your definition of the chief good. For we must inevitably maintain this rule, that when a consequence is false, the premises from which the consequence proceeds cannot be true. ”

“ In this refusal to do justice there is contradiction; and as error exists where contradiction lies, it is precisely in that contradiction that we must seek the means of refuting error and assert the power of truth. ”

“ I can better excuse an erring practice than an erring principle, for the one may be the result of a thousand strong and bitter temptations, but the other must be the effect of ignorant or wilful wickedness and ingratitude. The good may fall seven times in a day, indeed, but the man of corrupt principle is too low to fall at all. ”

“ It is a well settled maxim of the law, that 'no person can bring a writ of error to reverse a judgment who is not a party or privy to the record.' 'A writ of error lies when a man is grieved by an error in the foundation, proceeding, judgment, or execution' in a suit. ”

“ There are thousands among the young and ardent and curious of our countrymen and countrywomen, whose minds may be likewise led astray from the truth; but if it be mischievous [ix] for the judge and the juror and the legislator to entertain erroneous views upon the nature of the understanding, the mind, or the soul, it is equally to be deprecated where the error is sown broadcast in the land. ”

“ As these words bear testimony to the sin of man, so others to his infirmity, to the limitation of human faculties and human knowledge, to the truth of the proverb, that 'to err is human.' Thus 'to retract' means properly no more than to handle again, to reconsider. ”

“ If I had a mind to dip into precedents in our own history, and in that of other states, I could undertake to point out more instances in which men of the greatest eloquence have been prejudicial, than all that can be brought of their having been serviceable, to their country. ”

“ In truth We tested thee and found that thou wert not of them that are endowed with understanding, wherefore We passed upon thee the sentence of negation, as a token of justice from Our presence; and verily We are equitable.
However, shouldst thou return unto Us, We would convert thy negation into affirmation. Verily We are the One Who is of immense bounteousness. But should the Primal Point cease to be with you, then the judgement given in the Words of God shall be final and unalterable and every one will assuredly uphold it. ”

“ For example, what greater injustice could be inflicted than by shifting the consequences of an act of God from A, upon whom it has fallen, to B, upon whom it did not fall,—who was confessedly in no way responsible for the act, and who has done no wrong whatever to A, whether by committing a tort or by breaking an obligation? ”

“ Falsehood. Falsity, lie, fabrication, untruth, fiction, fib; imposture, counterfeit, cheat; fallacy, error, sophistry, forgery, deception.
Ant. Truth, verity, correctness, fact, genuineness, honesty, honor, reality, authenticity.
Falsify. Misrepresent, counterfeit, belie, misstate, garble; disprove, show unsound; violate; mistake, misinterpret, betray.
Ant. Verify, rectify, correct, check, certify, justify, expose, declare, exhibit, publish. ”

“ A mere recital in briefs of the existence of an assignment of error, without argument or citation of authorities in its support, and without a statement that it is insisted upon by counsel, is insufficient to save it from being treated as abandoned. ”

“ Even a court of judicature, with all the authority, accuracy, and judgement, which they can employ, find themselves often at a loss to distinguish between truth and falsehood in the most recent actions. ”

“ Consider that the Great God of Heaven and Earth, before whose tribunal thou, and we, and all persons are to stand at the last day, will call thee to an account for the rescinding his truth, and take vengeance of thee for every falshood thou tellest. ”

“ Rep. 764. Inasmuch as those cases are decisive upon the point under consideration, a mere reference to them is all that is essential in this connection. We still adhere to the doctrines therein enunciated, and this assignment of error is, therefore, without force. ”

“ For if you once admit into such a high sanctuary of authority one false statement as made in the way of duty, [2] there will not be left a single sentence of those books which, if appearing to any one difficult in practice or hard to believe, may not by the same fatal rule be explained away, as a statement in which, intentionally, and under a sense of duty, the author declared what was not true. ”

“ In your expurgation, of the popular errors, you must be sure that the truth they contain, is in some form as strongly, as effectively composed in your text, or the popular error is truer and better than the truth with which you would replace it. ”

“ KNOWLEDGE being to be had only of visible and certain truth, ERROR is not a fault of our knowledge, but a mistake of our judgment giving assent to that which is not true. ”

“ We do not say that we necessarily should have come to this conclusion if the case had been tried before us in the first instance, but, upon a pure question of fact, the error, if there was one, is not so plain as to call upon us to depart from our usual rule. ”

“ But blame the false, and value still the true.
Some ne'er advance a judgment of their own,
But catch the spreading notion of the Town;
[145] They reason and conclude by precedent,
And own stale nonsense which they ne'er invent. ”

“ Their very Petitions have the force of Invectives; and the Smoother, the Softer, you find the Surface of them, the Falser, and the more Dangerous they are at the Bottom: For betwixt the Persecution that is Insinuated, on the part of the Government, & the Innocence, the Piety, and the Modesty, on that of the Sufferers, Nothing can more Provoke, a Horror, and Indignation for the One, or a Tenderness, & Compassion, for the Other. ”

“ Much discussion of the first assignment of error is unnecessary, for two reasons: 1. Because the issues presented under the peremptory exceptions were issues of law for the determination of the court. ”

“ Any argument which deceives us, by seeming to prove what it does not really prove, may be called a ‘Fallacy’ (derived from the Latin verb fallo “I deceive”) : but the particular kind, to be now discussed, consists of a Pair of Propositions, which are proposed as the Premisses of a Syllogism, but yield no Conclusion. ”

“ When it pronounces an action right, it does so because it recognises it to be conformed to law; when it pronounces an action wrong, it does so because it recognises it to fall short of or to transgress law. ”

“ And I think that if we give a few moments' attention to considering how the well-meaning servant above referred to came to make such a mistake as she did, and what exactly was the nature of her mistake, it may help us to find our way to some of the great principles by which false Reform ought to be distinguished from true. ”

“ We make the mistakes, in large part, because we cannot convince ourselves what is error and what is truth. The element of loss and penalty which I have described is the true premium which is offered us for finding out where the truth lies. ”

“ And then it was that he must say before the angel that it was an error, Eccl. v. 6. He shall be guilty in one of these (ch. v. 4) , guilty if he do not perform his oath, and yet, if the matter of it were evil, guilty if he do. ”

“ An examination of this case will present a striking instance of the error into which the strongest minds may be led, whenever they shall depart from the plain, common acceptation of terms, or from well ascertained truths, for the attainment of conclusions, which the subtlest ingenuity is incompetent to sustain. ”