154. TRUTH (general).

Truth is the most perfect knowledge attainable concerning any given question.*

The most incessant occupation of human intellect throughout life is the ascertainment of truth. We are always needing to know what is actually true about something or other.

-JOHN STUART MILL.

All Science is the search of truth, and only as we know the truth of things,

Can we bring forth their good, and make their worth available for use.

-CHARLES HENRY HANGER.

There is nothing greater than truth; and truth should be esteemed the most sacred of all things.

* From A New Catechism, by M. M. Mangasarian.

The evidence which truth carries with it is superior to all argument; it neither wants the support, nor dreads the opposition of the greatest abilities.

-LORD CHATHAM.

Truth can hardly be expected to adapt herself to the crooked policy, and wily sinuosities of worldly affairs; for truth, like light, travels only in straight lines.

-COLTON.

It is a scene of delight to be safe on shore and see a ship tossed at sea, or to be in a fortification and see two armies join battle upon a plain. But it is a pleasure incomparable for the mind to be seated by learning in the fortress of truth, and from thence to view the errors and labours of others.

The truth reveals itself in proportion to our patience and knowledge, discovers itself kindly to our pleadings, and leads us, as it is discovered, into deeper truths. -RUSKIN.

To know the truth of things, to have cognisance of that which is real, we must penetrate beneath the surface, eliminate the accidental and irrelevent, and grasp the principle or essence which underlies and interprets ap

pearances.

-DR. CAIRD.

For truth has such a face and such a mien,
As to be loved needs only to be seen.

-DRYDEN.

Where diligence opens the ing, and impartiality keeps it, entrance and a welcome too.

door of the understandtruth is sure to find an

It is by means of reason that one comes to the knowledge of truth; and by means of truth that he gets the peace of his mind; and it is the tranquility of the mind that dispels the misery of men.

"YOGA VASISTHA."*

By the light of truth the darkness of ignorance will be dispelled,

The essence of what is best in things will come to light,

Which will certainly be a source of happiness.

The light of truth will at once show you what is
good and what is evil,

The knowledge of what is good will add to your
prosperity and make you famous in the world.
The moth of superstition will kill itself before the
lamp of truth,

The gloom of ignorance will also disappear and the
light of knowledge will render you happy.

-NARMADASHANKAR.†

When Truth in noon-day splendour shines,
Faint Superstition goes to sleep;

But let Truth's brilliant orb decline,
And she will rise and ware-house keep.

Once more her busy streets will ring
With Vanity's gay sons and daughters;

* Translated by Vihâri Lâlâ Mitra.

A Gujarati poct.

Mammon will ope his glittering shrine,
And Pleasure sail upon her waters.

-JAMES BALLANTINE.

Four men stand gazing at a statue: one is before it, another behind it, the other two occupy opposite sides. The first observes two eyes, a nose and a mouth. The second sees neither eyes nor nose, nor mouth, but the back parts. The other two see each a different eye and ear and half a mouth. If we collect the observations of all four men, we obtain a pretty complete idea of the whole statue; but the view of each, by himself, is partial, true in itself but false if that which is partial be assumed to be the entire truth. So is it with absolute verity. Every one of us contemplates it from a different standpoint and with different perspective. No man is able to embrace at once and in all its aspects that truth or perfection which is infinite, because he himself is a finite being, and he sees only a corner, an angle corresponding to his moral, intellectual or aesthetical pre-dispositions. For him, that is truth, and that alone; and as every man differs from every one else in his predispositions, whether native or acquired, every one beholds a different phase, and pretends that his own visual angle is the entire plan, and that one detail is the totality of the statue.* -S. BARING-GOULD.

Time and nature will bolt out the truth of things.
-SIR R. L'ESTRANGE.

'Twixt truth and error there's this difference known, Error is fruitful, truth is only one.

-HERRICK.

* From The Origin and Development of Religious Belief.

Truth, it is said, lies deep and requires time and labour to gain, but falsehood swims on the surface, and is always at hand.

Truth being founded upon a rock, you may boldly seek to see its foundation, without fear of destroying the evidence, but falsehood being laid on the sand, if you examine its foundations, you cause it to fall.

If you want truth to go round the world, you must hire an express train to pull it, but if you want a lie to go round the world, it will fly. It is light as a feather, and a breath will carry it.

Truth crushed to earth shall rise again:
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes with pain,
And dies among his worshippers.

--W. C. BRYant.

A thousand probabilities cannot make one truth.

-OLD ITALIAN PROVERB.

The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

-JOHN STUART MILL.