Humanum  est  errare  (L.,  "  To  err  is  human"),  a  saying  which  seems  to
owe  its  verbal  dress  to  the  elder  Seneca  (Controv.t  lib.  iv.,  dial.  3),  but  in  senti-
ment may  be  found  at  least  as  far  back  as  Theo^is,  circa  B.C  540,  who,
according  to  Buchmann,  has  it  in  the  form,  "Mistakes  wait  on  mortal  man."
Sophocles  in  "Antigone,"  1023-24,  Euripides  in  "  Hippolytus,"  615,  and  an
unknown  tragic  poet,  reaffirm  the  sentiment  in  the  same  words.  The  epigram
upon  the  Greeks  who  fell  at  Chaeronea,  quoted  by  Demosthenes,  Pro  Corona^
§  289,  declares  that  "  to  err  in  nothing  is  the  affair  of  the  gods."  Cicero,
PhilippicSy  xii.  2,  puts  the  thought  in  this  form  :  "  Cujusvis  hominis  est  errare,
nullius  nisi  insipientis  in  errore  perseverare"  ("  Any  man  may  err,  only  a  fool
persists  in  error").  In  modern  literature  the  most  famous  repetitions  of  the
idea  are  Goethe*s

E^  irrt  der  Mensch,  so  lang  er  strebt,

Faust :  Prologue  im  Htaven,

and  Pope's

To  err  is  human  .*  to  forgive^  divine.
Essay  on  Crtttcism,  Part  II.,  1.  395.
Bayard  Taylor  translated  Goethe  as  follovrs  :

While  man's  desires  and  aspirations  stir.
He  cannot  choose  but  err.
