On Being Sure About Things We Don't Know

One of the ever-startling things about humankind is the quality that sometimes permit us to be so sure about things we don’t know…to be so utterly positive in our opinions, and yet so wrong. History has given us many examples of uncompromising declarations which the verdict of succeeding generations has found to be in error. Things which only yesterday were dogmatically declared in the classroom and elsewhere are being replaced by other theories, which in our day are sometimes taught with equal dogmatism and some of which will also later be discarded. Constantly there are being challenged, discredited, and abandoned theories and suppositions, postulates and hypotheses that have heretofore been said to be the last word on the subject. Theories are often the steppingstones to truth, but they must be regarded with reservation until greater light comes to credit or discredit them conclusively. Wisdom comes when we learn to know how much we don’t know, and when we learn to remember how much that was accepted as the last word yesterday is today discarded, and when we realize that many of today’s theories and positive postulates will be discarded tomorrow. And so, in all our searchings and in all our soundings of the truths of life, and of the world we live in, and of the universe beyond, before we become too positive in a wrong direction, we could save ourselves much trouble if we would remember that when two men fundamentally disagree in any field of thought or learning, either one of them is wrong or both of them are wrong. And when we don’t know which, wisdom would suggest that we reserve judgment and wait for further findings, for more truth, for some light. With all the endless ages there are to unfold before us, it would seem to be better to wait for confirmed facts rather than to seize too quickly upon fleeting fallacies. “Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding.”¹