Page 48 - DENG502_PROSE

Prose

Notes 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.

According to him, God created the light of the senses first so that men could see the
world around them. The last thing he created, according to him, was the light of reason,
that is, the rational faculty.

Self Assessment
1. Choose the correct options:
(i) Sepantia means
(a) Search for knowledge (b) The art of rhetoric
(c) Judgment on the matter (d) None of these

42 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY