Guesses

Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Oct 18, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 42.

Guesses.—In speaking of "Higher Criticism," President David Starr Jordan, of Stanford University, honestly remarks:—

"The weakness of this study lies in the demand for results. The investigator deals with probabilities of various grades of certainty. He is subject to the temptation to record his tentative conclusions as truth, and to ascribe to mere, plausible guesses a value they do not possess. In many cases one guess is as good as another, and absolute certainty is not possible."

And that is what many of the conclusions of men are to begin with,—"mere plausible guesses,"—absolutely of no worth. So in geology and other sciences. Some profound investigator puts forth a "plausible guess" as a mere hypothesis, and straightway a crowd of lesser lights herald them to the world as absolute truth. Meanwhile, "the Word of the Lord endureth forever."