Issue 138 求拍，还有两天就考了

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TOPIC: ISSUE138 - "Only through mistakes can there be discovery or progress."
Although there are many people who advocate the old saying that failure teaches success, it does not mean that only through mistakes can there be discovery or progress. As far as I am concerned, success is often accompanied by mistake, and learning from mistakes contributes to yield great discovery. But mistakes are neither necessary nor sufficient to making a success.

There is no denying that mistakes benefit us while frustrating us. Mistake induces us to find out the reason resulting in mistake and to make a corresponding correction. By constantly modifying the idea and means it is more likely to yield great discovery, thereby promoting the progress of human race. This point applies to any field of realm, including politics, economics, natural science, and liberal art. History is replete with numerous examples. Recogzing the failure of Hoover's volunteerism on Great Depression, Roosevelt greatly strengthened the level of state intervention. It is countless experiments and mistakes that made Nobel constantly improve explosive, thus brought about dynamite and gelignite. In short, discovery and progress can be made through mistakes. A variety of laws are continually modified when legislators recognize their defects. In short, mistakes inform us what does not work and lead us to make other attempts.


Nevertheless, whether mistakes can lead to discovery or progress depends on the person's attitude toward these mistakes to a great extent. The prerequisite of making mistakes useful for people is that people are willing to learn lessons from mistakes. If the person who has made mistake just feels depressed rather than learn to make use of mistakes, mistakes are of no value, and thus he or she must stop at mistakes. Even worse, some persons refuse to admit mistakes. For example, during 15th and 16th century, theologists and churchmen not only denied heliocentric theory but also persecuted those advocators such as Copernicus, Bruno, and Galileo. Accordingly, facing mistakes, people should be optimistic and draw useful lessons from them in order to make a great discovery.

The claim should not be taken too far. Although mistake is not fully harmful, we should try our best to avoid making mistake. After all, a high price must be paid for mistakes sometimes. Thus, it is desirable for us to use our minds to think things over before taking certain actions. For example, human beings cannot recognize the significance of protecting environment by way of damaging environment. By now, human beings have accepted the punishment from nature and made great efforts to restore environment. In fact, when people deforest and hunt animals, through logical reasoning they should recognize possible undesirable consequences. However, the material interests lead people to lose sight of consequences so that environment is becoming worse. In a word, some mistakes can be avoided by way of minds.

To sum up, mistakes are conducive to discovery and progress only when the person is capable of learning lessons from mistakes. However, we should prevent the claim from being an excuse for those who lack the sense of responsibility. It is rational to try our best to avoid making mistake.