truth with constancy and precision is nearly as difficult, and perhaps
as meritorious, as to speak it under intimidation or penalty; and it is
a strange thought how many men there are, as I trust, who would hold to
it at the cost of fortune or life, for one who would hold to it at the
cost of a little daily trouble. And seeing that of all sin there is,
perhaps, no one more flatly opposite to the Almighty, no one more
"wanting the good of virtue and of being," than this of lying, it is
surely a strange insolence to fall into the foulness of it on light or
on no temptation, and surely becoming an honorable man to resolve that,
whatever semblances or fallacies the necessary course of his life may
compel him to bear or to believe, none shall disturb the serenity of his
voluntary actions, nor diminish the reality of his chosen delights.
II. If this be just and wise for truth's sake, much more is it necessary
for the sake of the delights over which she has influence. For, as I
advocated the expression of the Spirit of Sacrifice in the acts and
pleasures of men, not as if thereby those acts could further the cause
of religion, but because most assuredly they might therein be infinitely
ennobled themselves, so I would have the Spirit or Lamp of Truth clear
in the hearts of our artists and handicraftsmen, not as if the truthful
practice of handicrafts could far advance the cause of truth, but
because I would fain see the handicrafts themselves urged by the spurs
of chivalry: and it is, indeed, marvellous to see what power and
universality there is in this single principle, and how in the
consulting or forgetting of it lies half the dignity or decline of every
art and act of man. I have before endeavored to show its range and power
in painting; and I believe a volume, instead of a chapter, might be
written on its authority over all that is great in architecture. But I
must be content with the force of instances few and familiar, believing
that the occasions of its manifestation may be more easily discovered by
a desire to be true, than embraced by an analysis of truth.
Only it is very necessary in the outset to mark clearly wherein consists
the essence of fallacy as distinguished from supposition.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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