Harmless error

“ 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. ”

“ Habit.
A man cannot ravel out the stitches in which early days have knit him.
Human error.
All systems that deal with the infinite are, besides, exposed to danger from small, unsuspected admixtures of human error, which become deadly when carried to such vast results. The smallest speck of earth’s dust, in the focus of an infinite lens, appears magnified among the heavenly orbs as a frightful monster. ”

“ We have not the shadow of doubt ourselves about the possibility of error. That is the steadfast rock on which we build. Our inquiry, ultra-skeptical as it may at moments seem, is into the question: How is the error possible? Or, in other words: What is an error? Now there can be little doubt that common sense is not ready with any general answer to such a question. Error is a word with many senses. By error we often mean just a statement that arouses our antipathy. Yet we all admit upon reflection, that our antipathy can neither make nor be used to define real error. ”

“ I am not more certain that I breathe, than that the assurance of the wrong or error of any action is often the one unconquerable force which impels us, and alone impels us to its prosecution. Nor will this overwhelming tendency to do wrong for the wrong’s sake, admit of analysis, or resolution into ulterior elements. It is a radical, a primitive impulse—elementary. It will be said, I am aware, that when we persist in acts because we feel we should not persist in them, our conduct is but a modification of that which ordinarily springs from the combativeness of phrenology. ”

“ To conclude quickly on the treatment of error, whether it be manifested in forms of sickness, sin, or death, is the first step towards destroying it, and to treat it through mind was the rule our Master practised. ”

“ For the excellent reason that it is the removal of a bad element which otherwise tends to propagate itself, or even if it fails to do that, tends at the best to make the surrounding mass of error more inveterate. All error is what physiologists term fissiparous, and in exterminating one false opinion you may be hindering the growth of an uncounted brood of false opinions. ”

“ My insistence upon a proper understanding of the unreality of matter and evil arises from their deleterious effects, physical, moral, and intellectual, upon the race.
All forms of error are uprooted in Science, on the same basis whereby sickness is healed,—namely, by the establishment, through reason, revelation, and Science, of the nothingness of every claim of error, even the doctrine of heredity and other physical causes. You demonstrate the process of Science, and it proves my view conclusively, that mortal mind is the cause of all disease. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But when the error is so firmly held in the mind’s grasp that nothing can dislodge it thence, then the mind is deranged in its special sphere of action, which consists in knowing the real from the unreal; the mind is then insane. ”

“ Other methods undertake to oppose error with error, and thus they increase the antagonism of one form of Matter versus matter matter towards other forms of matter or error, and the warfare between Spirit and the flesh goes on. By this antagonism mortal mind must continually weaken its own assumed power. ”

“ The promulgation of error will do harm, a harm that might be averted if error were suppressed. But [Pg 109] suppression by any other means than those of rational suasion is one of those remedies which cure the disease by killing the patient. It paralyzes the free search for truth. Not only so, but there is an element of positive value in honest error which places it above mechanically accepted truth. So far as it is honest it springs from the spontaneous operation of the mind on the basis of some partial and incomplete experience. ”

“ But I beg the House to observe this, that an error which produces the most serious consequences may not necessarily prove that the man who has committed it is not a very wise man; and that, on the other hand, an error which directly produces no important consequences may prove the man who has committed it to be quite unfit for public trust. ”

“ And no less deep and dangerous is the wound, but, on the contrary, all the deeper and more dangerous, because inflicted by hands which aimed not to harm, but to help her. Moreover, though it is always consoling to be able to trace an error to the understanding, the error may, nevertheless, be quite as pernicious as if the heart were involved in it. ”

“ The problem was a serious one. An error of judgment, a step in the wrong direction, would not only be a serious, if not fatal blow to his hopes, but might lead to untold hardships to others most dear to him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The medical superstition derived from this remote antiquity has continued down to the present generation in the English almanacks, is still continued in the popular almanacks of other countries, and prevails at this time throughout the whole Mahommedan and Eastern world. So deeply does error strike its roots, and so widely scatter its seeds; and so difficult is it to extirpate any error whatsoever, or any evil, which it is the interest of any class of men to maintain. ”

“ To such we will merely say that we charitably hope they do not call this exclamation an argument, and that if they reflected for a moment they ought to remember numberless instances where error has existed for centuries unrefuted, and acquiesced in by all mankind; that on their principle error ought to prevail in exact proportion to its greatness, since the oldest errors are the earliest, and the earliest are, generally speaking, the greatest, the infancy of every science being its most imperfect stage. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every error involves a contradiction. For since he who is in error does not wish to err, but to be right, it is clear that he is not doing what he wishes. For what does the thief wish to achieve? His own interest. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Even when you discover them in minor faults do not make the mistake of unduly magnifying and emphasizing the error. As soon as possible direct the thoughts and attention of the wrongdoer away from his error, and focus his thoughts and attention on the high goal you expect him to reach. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But error is undoubtedly a form, and even a serious form, of evil; from which it would follow that if evil is not real, error is not possible—and in that case one opinion is as good as its opposite, and black and white are only different {127} descriptions of the same thing. ”

“ And yet, when one has been mistaken from the start, even in trifling details, when an error of assumption or recollection makes one seek for the author of a malicious slander, or for the place where one has lost something, in the wrong direction, it frequently happens that one discovers one's error only to substitute for it not the truth but a fresh error. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now as error, like the serpent, is more subtle than any other idea in man, it acts upon the weaker portion of our thoughts and ideas, and engrafts them into the idea of happiness and misery. Now as this idea grows and sends forth its fruit, it is conveyed by error to other trees or ideas in others, and thus spring up false theories, false doctrines, etc. ”

“ These evils would be immensely increased at a period when no such extensive precautions against error were taken in any case, and when in some cases it would seem as if no precautions were taken at all. ”

“ In the presence of the total reality upon which our conduct is founded, our knowledge is characterized by peculiar limitations and aberrations. We cannot say in principle that “error is life and knowledge is death,” because a being involved in persistent errors would continually act wide of the purpose, and would thus inevitably perish. ”

“ If these seeds of error that he is sowing take root in their minds they will spring up and bear fruit after their own kind, even the results of error, and make the one sick whose mind he impresses with this falsehood. They must necessarily produce sickness. The entire happiness of the individuals subject to this malpractice and demonology is affected by it if they avail not themselves of the remedy. ”

“ Uncover error, and it turns the lie on you. Until the fact concerning error — namely, its nothingness — Opposing power. appears, the moral demand will not be met, and the ability to make nothing of error will be wanting. We should blush to call that real which is only a mistake. The foundation of evil is laid on a belief in something besides God. This belief tends to support two opposite powers, instead of urging the claims of Truth alone. The mistake of thinking that error can be real, when it is merely the absence of Truth, leads to belief in the superiority of error. ”

“ Secondly, But error is a sin of an increasing nature, and usually stops not at one or two falsehoods, but is apt to spawn into many others—as some of the most noxious creatures have the most numerous broods; for one error hath this mischievous danger in it, that it taints the mind to an instability in every truth; and the bond of steadfastness being once broken, a man hath no certainty where he shall stay: as a wanton horse, once turned loose, may wander far. This hazard is made a serious warning against error: 2 Pet. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Still she tells us that she was blamed for her imprudence; and she brings instances from her own experience to show the frequent error of judging of what one does, or forbears to do, by the apparent result, rather than from knowledge or by principle. "People judge by consequences, or what seem to be consequences, rather than by reasoning upon premises." ”

“ Under this assumed state of facts we content ourselves with saying that there is no room for holding that the assertion of error based upon the refusal to continue was so devoid of foundation as to be merely frivolous in character. ”

“ It cannot be entertained. On the other hand, the moment the possibility of error is admitted, the reasoning breaks down, for the probability of error on the part of the observers, either as regards the external phenomena, or the inferences drawn from them, being so infinitely greater than the probability of mistake in the complete induction, we must unquestionably hold by the law and reject the testimony of the twelve men. ”

“ 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. ”

“ First, Naturally to error rather than truths. The corruption of our nature is general, and doth not only dispose the will and affections to practical iniquities, but doth also incline the understanding to error and misapprehension. ”