ESSAYS 

 i 



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 labour 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 favour ; 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 

 shew 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 

 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 add pleasure. 

 Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out 



A 



