Francis Bacon - The Essays 1601
OF TRUTH
What is truth? said jesting Pilate,
and would not stay for an answer.
Certainly there be,
that delight in giddiness,
and count it a
bondage to
fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking,
as well as in acting.
And
though the sects
of philosophers of that kind be gone,
yet there remain
certain discoursing wits,
which are of the same veins,
though there be not
so much blood in them,
as was in those of the ancients.
But it is not
only
the difficulty and labor,
which men take in
finding out of truth, nor
again,
that when it is found,
it imposeth upon men's thoughts,
that doth
bring lies in favor;
but a natural though corrupt love,
of the lie itself.
One of the later
school of the Grecians, examineth the matter,
and is at a
stand,
to think what should be in it,
that men should love lies;
where
neither they make for pleasure, as with poets, nor for advantage,
as with
the merchant;
but for the lie's sake.
But I cannot tell; this same truth,
is a naked, and open day-light,
that doth not show the masks, and
mummeries, and triumphs, of the world,
half so stately and
daintily as
candle-lights.
Truth may perhaps come
to the price of a pearl,
that
showeth best by day;
but it will not
rise to the price of a diamond, or
carbuncle,
that showeth best in varied lights.
A mixture of a
lie doth
ever add pleasure.
Doth any man doubt,
that if there were
taken out of
men's minds, vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations,
imaginations as one would, and the like,
but it would leave the minds,
of
a number of men, poor shrunken things,
full of melancholy and
indisposition,
and unpleasing to themselves?
One of the fathers,
in great
severity,
called poesy vinum doemonum,
because it filleth the imagination;
and yet,
it is but with
the shadow of a lie.
But it is not
the lie that
passeth through the mind,
but the lie that sinketh in,
and settleth in it,
that doth the hurt;
such as we spake of before. But,
howsoever these
things are thus in men's depraved judgments, and affections, yet truth,
which only doth judge itself,
teacheth that the inquiry of truth,
which is
the love-making,
or wooing of it,
the knowledge of truth,
which is the
presence of it,
and the belief of truth,
which is the enjoying of it,
is
the sovereign good of human nature.
The first creature of God,
in the
works of the days,
was the light of the sense; the last,
was the light of
reason;
and his sabbath work ever since,
is the illumination of his
Spirit.
First he breathed light,
upon the face of
the matter or chaos;
then he breathed light,
into the face of man;
and still he breatheth
and
inspireth light,
into the face of his chosen. The poet,
that beautified
the sect,
that was otherwise inferior to the rest,
saith yet excellently
well:
It is a pleasure,
to stand upon the shore,
and to see ships
tossed
upon the sea; a pleasure,
to stand in the
window of a castle,
and to see a
battle,
and the adventures thereof below:
but no pleasure is
comparable to
the standing
upon the vantage ground of truth (a
hill not to be commanded,
and where the air
is always clear and serene),
and to see the errors, and
wanderings, and mists, and tempests,
in the vale below;
so always that
this
prospect be with pity,
and not with swelling, or pride. Certainly,
it
is heaven upon earth,
to have a man's
mind move in charity,
rest in
providence,
and turn upon the poles of truth.
To pass from theological,
and philosophical truth,
to the truth of civil business;
it will be
acknowledged,
even by those that practise it not, that clear,
and round
dealing,
is the honor of man's nature;
and that mixture of falsehoods,
is
like alloy in
coin of gold and silver,
which may make the
metal work the
better,
but it embaseth it. For these winding, and crooked courses,
are
the goings of the serpent;
which goeth basely upon the belly,
and not upon
the feet.
There is no vice,
that doth so cover
a man with shame,
as to be
found false and perfidious.
And therefore Montaigne saith prettily,
when
he inquired the reason,
why the word of
the lie should be such a disgrace,
and such an odious charge? Saith he,
If it be well weighed,
to say that a
man lieth,
is as much to say,
as that he is brave towards God,
and a
coward towards men.
For a lie faces God,
and shrinks from man.
Surely the
wickedness of falsehood,
and breach of faith,
cannot possibly be so highly
expressed,
as in that it
shall be the last peal,
to call the judgments
of
God upon the generations of men; it being foretold,
that when Christ
cometh,
he shall not find
faith upon the earth.
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