Controversy is only dreaded by the advocates of error.
Interpretation
Controversy reveals the truth, often threatening those who are wrong.
Benjamin Rush highlights that controversy often arises primarily among those who are in the wrong. Those who hold incorrect beliefs or errors fear debate and challenge, as it threatens their position, while those who are confident in their truth welcome discussion and differing opinions. Thus, controversy is a sign of the presence of error and the struggle for clarity and truth.
In practice
In a discussion about free speech at a community meeting.
...This large and expensive stock of drugs will be unnecessary. By...doses of...medicines...multiplying...combining them properly, 20 to 30 articles, aided by the common resources of the lancet, a garden, a kitchen, fresh air, cool water, exercise, will be sufficient to cure all the diseases that are at present under the power of medicine.
The Bible, when not read in schools, is seldom read in any subsequent period of life...The Bible...should be read in our schools in preference to all other books because it contains the greatest portion of that kind of knowledge which is calculated to produce private and public happiness.
The gospel of Jesus Christ prescribes the wisest rules for just conduct in every situation in life. Happy they who are enabled to obey them in all situations!
Dissections daily convince us of our ignorance of the seats of diseases, and cause us to blush at our prescriptions. How often are we disappointed in our expectation from the most certain and powerful of our remedies, by the negligence or obstinacy of our patients! What mischief have we done under the belief of false facts and false theories! We have assisted in multiplying diseases. We have done more β we have increased their mortality.
Temperate, sincere, and intelligent inquiry and discussion are only to be dreaded by the advocates of error. The truth need not fear them.
The art of healing is like an unroofed temple, uncovered at the top and cracked at the foundation.
There are books which we read early in life, which sink into our consciousness and seem to disappear without leaving a trace. And then one day we find, in some summing-up of our life and put attitudes towards experience, that their influence has been enormous.
Only a life lived in a certain spirit is worth living. It is a remarkable fact that a life lived entirely from the ego is dull not only for the person himself but for all concerned.
Resting in Awareness, we transform all the 'stuff' of our lives.
The recollected go forth to lives of renunciation. They take no pleasure in a fixed abode. Like wild swans abandoning a pool, they leave one resting place after another.
No one in this world, so far as I know - and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me - has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.
Tell me what you think and then tell me what the really smart person in the room who disagrees with you thinks.
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