Trial and Error

One of the methods of determining the truth of falsity of any theory is by “trial and error”⎯which is to say, if you want to prove something, try it, put it to the test. If it works, it is true; if it doesn’t, it is false. In the physical world such experimentation has led to many great factual discoveries. But every man cannot always prove all things by trial and error⎯nor is it necessary. For example, a long time ago we learned that if we explode a bomb near people and property, injury and destruction and even death follow. This, having been demonstrated, becomes an accepted fact. The experiment is conclusive, and it isn’t necessary for millions of us to run around with high explosives just to see what they will do. In other words, the method of trial and error is a useful way of prying into the unknown, but it is pointless and foolish and costly once things are known. And what is true of inanimate things is also true of life and people and human happiness. Sometimes we hear those who justify unconventional conduct and foolish ways of living on the ground that one has to experiment in order to know what life if like. But such experimenting with life is like indiscriminately setting off dynamite just to see what it will do. There are books that will tell us what such things will do; history will tell us; scripture will tell us; and the broken lives of foolish experimenters, both living and dead, will tell us. Some things we must learn by first-hand experience, it is true. But the principles and practices that make for human happiness and unhappiness have long been known⎯and when the laws of men and of God and all the experiences of all the ages have proved these things, those who persist in trial and error are as foolish as the meddler with high explosives. Experience is a great teacher, but it is too costly to learn everything by personal experience. It is part of our heritage that some things we already know before we make the mistake of tampering with them. And even if it were possible for each of us individually to prove or disprove all things by trial and error, he who undertook to do who would find himself, both here and hereafter, far behind those who accept what is known, and proceed from there to the unknown.