Error

“ But if the error was a means and an instrument in the attainment of truth, and if mankind in its going out from itself and in its return to itself is inwardly developed, where does the boundary between truth and error lie, and what is the meaning of the whole? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Of all the offspring of Time, Error is the most ancient, and is so old and familiar an acquaintance, that Truth, when discovered, comes upon most of us like an intruder, and meets the intruder's welcome. ”

“ But constant, he were perfect. That one error
Fills him with faults; makes him run through all the sins:
Inconstancy falls off ere it begins. ”

“ The dead abstract notions of the intellect, the dialectical disputes of the reason, the purely subjective and one-sided apprehension of objects by a deluded fancy, and the absolute will, are the four sources of human error. ”

“ But, pardon me, if in answer to your concluding remark, I venture to say that no man can hope to correct any error in his own knowledge, unless he has the courage to confide the error to those who can correct. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thus, the greater number of a man’s errors come before him disguised under the specious form of necessity; then, after error has been committed in a moment of excitement, of delirium, or of fear, we see that we might have avoided and escaped 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. ”

“ Are you wounded by the wantonness of those you long to save? These errors are perhaps their appointed teachers in your stead. Error is not exempt from the law! Can Love check a cyclone in mid career, or does Reason outrun the whirlwind? Desire has a lustier voice than yours. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Or finally, if error were impossible, any and every account of Being or truth, of ideas and of objects, of the world or of nothing at all, would be equally true, or in other words, no truth would ever be defined. For truth we define by its contrast with the error that it excludes. So some ideas certainly can and do err in as far as they undertake to be ideas of objects. ”

“ But in the case of moral and religious truths or errors, people, if they admit that nothing is to be set to the credit of error as such, still constantly have a subtle and practically mischievous confusion in their minds between the possible usefulness of error, and the possible expediency of leaving it temporarily undisturbed. ”

“ In spite of the frequency with which this impropriety has been censured, one hears it almost daily from the lips of educated men and women. The error arises from confounding look in the sense of to direct the eye, and look in the sense of to seem, to appear. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No consensus of men can make an error erroneous. We can only find or commit an error, not create it. When we commit an error, we say what was an error already. ”

“ One is saved from all error and obtains a completely consistent conception by dropping the former and everything that results from its consideration, and keeping only to the latter and carrying it out consistently. ”

“ An error, we reply, is an incomplete thought, that to a higher thought, which includes it and its intended object, is known as having failed in the purpose that it more or less clearly had, and that is fully realized in this higher thought. ”

“ I maybe allowed to add, that many individuals, and amongst them men as keen in the detection of error as unmerciful in its exposure, have assured me, that after taking up the pamphlet for the purpose of tracing out the fallacy on which, in their full belief, its suggestions were founded, after perusing and re-perusing, examining and comparing, after trying the chain as a whole and striking it link by link, they became convinced of its perfect soundness, and satisfied that the only error was in their own previous conceptions. ”

“ A supposition of pleasure and pain, of intelligence, substance, and Life in matter, and this supposition an error. Again, error is neither Mind nor a faculty of Mind or Soul. Error is a belief, and belief without understanding is error. Why error is unreal is because it is untrue, — that which seemeth and is not. ”

“ We will therefore take this opportunity of making a few remarks on an error which is, we fear, becoming common, and which appears to us not only absurd, but as pernicious as almost any error concerning the transactions of a past age can possibly be. ”

“ It has been said, error is human; I say, error is love. ”

“ Now this analysis of the elements of a judgment is no explanation of our difficulties; and in fact for the moment only embarrasses us more. But the nature of the difficulty may come home to us somewhat more clearly, if we try to follow the thread of this analysis a little further. Even if it is a very imperfect account, it may serve to lead us up to the true insight that we seek into the nature of error. ”

“ His chance of error is renewed at every attempt; an oblique view of the passage, a slight misapprehension of a phrase, a casual inattention to the parts connected, is sufficient to make him not only fail, but fail ridiculously; and when he succeeds best, he produces perhaps but one reading of many probable, and he that suggests another will always be able to dispute his claims. ”

“ But when we reason in words of general signification, and fall upon a general inference which is false, though it be commonly called error, it is indeed an absurdity or senseless speech. For error is but a deception in presuming that somewhat is past, or to come, of which, though it were not past, or not to come, yet there was no impossibility discoverable. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Although, however, error on this side is infinitely less mischievous than on the other, no vehement error can exist in this world with impunity; and it does appear that in our common view of these matters we have closed our eyes to certain grave facts of experience, and have given the fatalist a vantage ground of real truth which we ought to have considered and allowed. ”

“ Now let us apply this theory of the supposition to the problem of error, and we shall then see how there can be an object present to the mind when we judge falsely, and also that the object is the same whether we judge truly or falsely. Suppositions are real possibilities; they are alternatives that may be fulfilled or that may never be fulfilled. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For, the great enemy of knowledge is not error, but inertness. All that we want is discussion, and then we are sure to do well, no [395] matter what our blunders may be. One error conflicts with another; each destroys its opponent, and truth is evolved. ”

“ The question that continually occurs to me is, when shall those beings who justly claim superiority of understanding, and thence a right to direct the world, find some simple and easy mode of convincing the mistaken, and by conviction of eradicating error? ”

“ And thus, even as regards things which it may be absurd to doubt, we may, in consequence of some past suggestion of the possibility of error, or of some chance association to their disadvantage, be teazed from time to time and hampered by involuntary questionings, as if we were not certain, when we are. ”

“ Every one, indeed, of the four fundamental faculties of the human mind contains, in itself, a faulty disposition and pernicious germ of a special and precise form of scientific error, which establishes and fully develops itself in its appropriate domain, and which, when circumstances are favorable, is matured and shaped into a system of falsehood. ”

“ The class of errors that we shall first take seems, to common sense, common enough. It is the class known as errors about our neighbor’s states of mind. Let us then, for argument’s sake, assume without proof that our neighbors do exist. For we are not here concerned to answer Solipsism, but merely to exemplify the difficulties about the nature of error. If our neighbors did not exist, then the nature of the error that would lie in saying that they do exist would present almost exactly the same difficulties. ”

“ It will stop, because error cannot stand agitation. Whoever espouses the cause of error must evade facts, falsify figures, libel logic, tangle his tongue or pen with [page 282] contradictions and wind up in confusion. ”

“ Having thus declared the infallible nature of Man even from his first production, we have beheld the general cause of Error. But as for popular Errors, they are more neerly founded upon an erroneous inclination of the people; as being the most deceptable part of Mankind and ready with open armes to receive the encroachments of Error. ”

“ In the first case they cut the ground from under the feet of error and expose the viciousness of the arguments on which error rests; while in the second case they make themselves masters of weighty reasons for the sound demonstration of truth and the satisfactory instruction of any reasonable person. Whoever denies that such study and practice tend to add to the resources and expand the faculties of the mind must necessarily and absurdly hold that the mind gains nothing from discriminating between the true and the false. ”

“ If an error should occur in the choice thus made for us by others, the fault is not ours: we could not decide whether or not an error had been committed, and could not venture to presuppose one; if it has occurred, then it is our business, so far as in us lies, to correct it. ”

“ Now what principle governs an error, whether that error be in music, mathematics, or life conduct?”
There was no reply to the question.
“Very well,” continued Hitt. “Evil can not be really known. And that is why God––infinite Mind––can not behold evil. And now, friends, I have come to the conclusion of a long series of deductions. ”

“ When our judgments go beyond what is guaranteed by a clear and distinct perception of their truth there is a possibility of error, and then the error is our own fault, the precipitate conclusion having been a voluntary act. ”

“ There are moments when what seems error to us comes forth from this common source. But, although we know very few things, proofs abound that the seeming error was in reality an act of prudence that we at first could not grasp. ”

“ But, on the other hand, it is quite possible that the truth to which our attention is just now most fittingly called may, if put forth too broadly and without certain qualifications, lead to error quite as great as the error at which it is aimed. ”

“ Whenever in the course of our reasoning we are involved in error, either the conclusion follows from the premisses or it does not. If it does not, the fault must lie in the process of reasoning, and we have then what is called a Logical Fallacy. If, on the other hand, the conclusion does follow from the premisses, the fault must lie in the premisses themselves, and we then have what is called a Material Fallacy. ”

“ For our science, so called, is always more barren and mixed with error than our sympathies are. ”

“ They call what they have done an error of judgment, and rest content in the belief that their intentions were good, and therefore they are not to blame. This may be true, for "to err is human," and none but the All-wise can be sure of always judging rightly. Still, when we know that we have done wrong through an error of judgment, we should carefully examine and see if we might not have avoided this mistake had we been more careful in our investigation of facts,—more conscientious in our process of adopting our opinions. ”

“ The theory of error which we have been considering rests entirely upon an assumption, namely that when known sources of disturbances are allowed for, there yet remain an indefinite, possibly an infinite number of other minute sources of error, which will as often produce excess as deficiency. ”