Saturday, December 19, 2020
Nipping Error in the Bud
Walter Savage Landor, "Lucian and Timotheus," Imaginary Conversations, Vol. I (London: J.M. Dent & Co., 1891), pp. 281-333 (at 281-282, Lucian speaking):
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Surely we ought to remove an error the instant we detect it, although it may be out of our competence to state and establish what is right. A lie should be exposed as soon as born: we are not to wait until a healthier child is begotten. Whatever is evil in any way should be abolished. The husbandman never hesitates to eradicate weeds, or to burn them up, because he may not happen at the time to carry a sack on his shoulder with wheat or barley in it. Even if no wheat or barley is to be sown in future, the weeding and burning are in themselves beneficial, and something better will spring up.
