To the historian it bristles with errors--not
errors of fact, but
errors of interpretation.
Still, while these principles were being rapidly disseminated many
errors and illusory fears proved less easy to eradicate.
For I found myself involved in so many doubts and
errors, that I was convinced I had advanced no farther in all my attempts at learning, than the discovery at every turn of my own ignorance.
Let it not be imagined, however, that I consider myself competent to reform the
errors and abuses of society, but only that I would fain contribute my humble quota towards so good an aim; and if I can gain the public ear at all, I would rather whisper a few wholesome truths therein than much soft nonsense.
Indeed this telegram contained two sorts of
errors, as was proved eventually.
I defended my
errors; and in my appeal to the purity of innocence, I left nothing unsaid that could touch a noble and generous nature.
If my poor Flatland friend retained the vigour of mind which he enjoyed when he began to compose these Memoirs, I should not now need to represent him in this preface, in which he desires, firstly, to return his thanks to his readers and critics in Spaceland, whose appreciation has, with unexpected celerity, required a second edition of his work; secondly, to apologize for certain
errors and misprints (for which, however, he is not entirely responsible); and, thirdly, to explain one or two misconceptions.
Yet though there is a great difference between our manners, customs, civil government, and those of the Abyssins, there is yet a much greater in points of faith; for so many
errors have been introduced and ingrafted into their religion, by their ignorance, their separation from the Catholic Church, and their intercourse with Jews, Pagans, and Mohammedans, that their present religion is nothing but a kind of confused miscellany of Jewish and Mohammedan superstitions, with which they have corrupted those remnants of Christianity which they still retain.
Goodness answers to the theological virtue, charity, and admits no excess, but
error. The desire of power in excess, caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess, caused man to fall: but in charity there is no excess; neither can angel, nor man, come in dan ger by it.
When from dark
error's subjugation My words of passionate exhortation Had wrenched thy fainting spirit free; And writhing prone in thine affliction Thou didst recall with malediction The vice that had encompassed thee: And when thy slumbering conscience, fretting By recollection's torturing flame, Thou didst reveal the hideous setting Of thy life's current ere I came: When suddenly I saw thee sicken, And weeping, hide thine anguished face, Revolted, maddened, horror-stricken, At memories of foul disgrace.
There remains, then, the character between these two extremes,- -that of a man who is not eminently good and just,-yet whose misfortune is brought about not by vice or depravity, but by some
error or frailty.
How was it that a man so exact and fastidious could have made this
error of a day?