2 BACON'S ESSAYS 



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 daemonum, 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 howso- 

 ever 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 illu- 

 mination 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 : c 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 



