Trial and Error – Sunday, January 26, 1941
One of the widely accepted methods by which we determine the truth or falsity of any theory, is that which we call “trial and error”, which is to say, in common language, if you have doubts concerning a thing, try it, put it to the test. If it works it is true; if it doesn’t it is false.
In the physical world, in the world of things and materials, such experimentation has proved its worth many times over, and has led to many great factual discoveries. But every man cannot prove all things by trial and error — nor is it necessary. For example, a long time ago we learned that if you discharge a sizeable quantity of nitroglycerin near exposed people and property, injury and destruction follow. This having been demonstrated times without number, becomes an accepted fact. The experiment is quite conclusive, and it isn’t necessary for millions of us to run around with loose charges of high explosives just to demonstrate the result. 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 definitely established.
And what is true of the physical world is more true of life itself where it concerns people and personalities. Sometimes you hear those who justify unconventional conduct and foolish ways of living on the grounds that one has to experiment in order to know what life is all about. But such experimenting with life is equivalent to setting off a destructive charge just to see what it will do. There are books that will tell you what it will do; history will tell you; scripture will tell you, and the broken lives of needless experimenters, both living and dead, will tell you. Some things we must learn by first-hand experience, it is true. But the fundamental principles of life are definitely established – and when both the laws of men and of God and all the experience of all the ages has proved those things, those who persist in such trial and error are as foolish as the meddler with high explosives.
Experience is a great thing, 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 then, And even if it were possible for each of us individually to prove or disprove the verity of all things by trial and error, those who undertook to do so, would find themselves, both here and hereafter, far behind those who accept what is known, and proceed from there to the unknown.
January 26, 1941
Broadcast Number 0,597