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| 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 1
free-will in thinking, as well as in acting. And though the sects of
philosophers, of that kind 2
be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing 3
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 4
men’s thoughts, that doth bring lies in favor; but a natural though
corrupt love of the lie itself. One of the later school 5
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? |
1 |
| One of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy vinum
dæmonum [devils’-wine], 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 6
that beautified the sect 7
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. |
2 |
| 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 falsehood 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. |
3 |