Page:Bacons Essays 1908 West.djvu/26

Rh Truth is a Naked and Open day light, that doth not shew the Masques, and Mummeries, and Triumphs of the World, halfe so stately and daintily as Candlelights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a Pearle, that sheweth best by day; But it will not rise to the price of a Diamond, or Carbuncle, that sheweth best in varied lights. A Mixture of a Lie doth ever adde Pleasure. Doth any man doubt that, if there were taken out of Men's Mindes Vaine Opinions, Flattering Hopes, False Valuations, Imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the Mindes of a Number of Men poore shrunken Things, full of Melancholy and Indisposition , and unpleasung to themselves? One of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy vinum dæmonum, 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 Iudgements, and Affections, yet Truth, which only doth iudge it selfe, teacheth that the Inquirie of Truth, which is the Love-making, or Wooing of it; The knowledge of Truth, which is the Presence of it; and the Beleefe of Truth, which is the Enjoying of it; is the Soveraigne Good of humane Nature. The first Creature of God, in the workes of the Dayes, was the Light of the Sense; The last, was the Light of Reason; And his Sabbath Worke, ever since, is the Illumination of his Spirit. First he breathed Light into 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 tost