Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	lie_v	speak_v	word_n	3,929	5	4.2262	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A84612	Five philosophical questions, most eloquently and substantially disputed: Viz: I. Whether there be nothing new in the world. II. Which is most to be esteemed; - an inventive wit, judgement, or courage. III. Whether truth beget hatred, and why. IV. Of the COCK; and whether his crowing doth affright the lion. V. Why dead bodies bleed in the presence of their murtherers.		1650 (1650)	Wing F1117; Thomason E615_11; ESTC R206547	21,350	36

rusticalnesse of which is ordinarily excused by clownes with the name of truth though truth be no more incompatible with good grace than pills are with leafe-gold by which the one is taken in better part and the other with lesse paine to the sick The fifth said that truth being the expression of the species of something and we taking pleasure to see a coppy well representing its originall it cannot beget hatred Things of themselves do not displease us at least there are more that please than that displease and of these a good part is sweetned by the manner of speaking of them as we see in jesting no man hindring us to speak truth laughing so that the denomination being not to be taken from the lesser and the lesse sound part truth cannot be said to beget hatred Also truth not being able to produce any thing but its like in an univocall generation it must be an equivocall one when it begets hatred the ignorant vulgar in this as they do often in other cases taking that for a cause which is none Otherwise the difficulty that we meet withall in seeking of truth increases the love of it and begets not hate of it Which love is no lesse universall than the hate of untruth as may appeare by that story of two Roman Citizens one of which was banished by a generall consent after it was known that he was so given to lying that he had never been heard speak truth the other received great and publick honours because he had never been heard speak any untruth no not in jest And we have nowadayes store of examples of the bad entertainment which all lyars finde which our ancient Gaules well knowing did account it the utmost degree of offence to give one the lie FINIS Of the Cock and whether his crowing doe affright the Lion THe first man said thus The Germans going to the warrs had reason to take a Cock with them to serve them for a spurre and an example of watchfulnesse whence came a custome to this day used by the Mule-drivers some of which tie a Cock upon their foremost carriage and others that will not trouble themselves with him provide only a plume of his feathers Upon the same ground Phidias made a statue of Minerva bearing a Cock upon her helmet unlesse you will rather think his reason to be because this Goddesse is as well president of warre as of study both which have need of much vigilancy Though this bird for other causes may be well enough said to pertaine to her as for his being so warlike and couragious as that he will not part with his desire of vanquishing though it cost him his life And this desire he prosecutes with such fury that Caelius Aurelian reports that a man fell mad having only been pecked by a Cock in the heat of his fighting For the passion of choler being a short madnesse is able exceedingly to raise the degree of heat in a temper already so extremely cholerick that in time the body of a Cock becomes nitrous and in this consideration it is prescribed to sick persons to make them laxative and it is the better if hee were first well beaten and plucked alive and then boiled And this courage of the Cock moved Artaxerxes King of Persia when a souldier of Caria had slaine Prince Cyrus to grant him leave to beare a little Cock of gold upon his Javelin as a singular badge of his great valour In imitation whereof all the souldiers of the same Province fell to weare the like upon the crests of their helmets and were thence called Alectryons that is in Latine Galli a name afterward given to our Nation and it may be for the like reason The Cock is also the Hieroglyphick of victory because he crows when he hath beaten his adversary which gave occasion to the Lacedaemonians to sacrifice a Cock when they had over come their enimies He was also dedicated to Mars and the Poets feigne that he was a young souldier and placed for a sentinell by this God of warre when he went to lie with Venus but feared the returne of her husband but this watchman sleeping till after Sun-rising Mars and she were taken napping by Vulcan Mars being very angry transformed this sleeper into a Cock for his negligence whence say they it comes to passe that well remembring the cause of his transformation he now gives warning when the Sun draws neere to our horizon Which fable is as tolerable as that of the Alcoran which attributes the crowing of our Cocks to one that as hee saith stands upon the first Heaven and is of so immense a hugenesse that his head toucheth the second which Cock crows so loud that he awakens all the Cocks upon the earth that immediately they fall a provoking one another to do the like as if there were one and the same instant of Cock-crowing all over the face of the whole earth The Cock was also dedicated to the Sun to the Moon and to the Goddesses Latona Ceres● and Proserpina which was the cause that the novices or those that were initiated in their mysteries must not eat of a Cock He was also dedicated to Mercury because vigilancy and earely rising is necessary for merchants and therefore they painted him in the forme of a man sitting having a crest upon his head with Eagles feet and holding a Cock upon his fist But particularly he was consecrated to Esculapius which made Socrates at the point of death to will his friends to sacrifice a Cock to him because his hemlock had wrought well And Pyrrhus curing men of the Spleen caused them to offer a white Cock whereas Pythagoras forbade his followers to meddle with the life or nourishing of any of that calour The Inhabitants of Calecuth sacrifice a Cock to their deity whom they conceive in the shape of a he-goat and Acosta out of Lucian assures us that anciently they worshipped a Cock for a God Which Christianity not suffering hath put them upon Churches the spires of steeples and high buildings calling them weather-cocks because as fanns they shew the coast whence the winde comes unlesse you rather think they are set up in remembrance of St. Peters repentance at the second crowing of a Cock. The cause of his crowing is commonly attributed to his heat which makes him rejoyce at the approach of the Sun as being of his own temper of which approach he is sooner sensible than others because hee more easily than any other creature receives the impressions of the aire as appears by that harsh voyce which he sometimes useth in crowing when he hath been newly moistened by the vapours and therefore the Countrey-men count it an ordinary signe of raine And forasmuch as the whole species of birds is more hot dry and light than the species of foure-footed beasts therefore the Lion though he be a solar creature as well as the Cock yet is so in a lesser degree than he Whence it

of the actions and customes of men These things being granted I think that truth of it selfe begets no hatred and therfore we need not seek the cause why it doth but on the contrary I say with Aristotle that wee love truth and that in such a measure that we like no falshood but that which hath an appearance of truth which wee call likely or probable which makes the romants to be disliked as soon as wee discover any impossibilities in them And they that would amuse little children with monstrous tales must yet so fit them to their little wit as that they may beleeve them and so think them true which is easily done because of their want of experience But forasmuch as the greater part of men is imperfect so farre as they love to be praysed so farre do they hate those that tell them the truth of their defects which ordinarily carry blame with them And because the same reason that makes every one love his own praise makes a man also take pleasure in blaming of others that he himselfe may seem more perfect Hence it comes that dispraise being very well liked by all save only him whom it concerns who is very sensible of it it was upon this ground that Terence said that Truth begets hatred especially when it is opposed to flattery and to complying with the humours of every man which makes truth appeare so much the more austere as a Countrey-man comming next after a Courtier seems so much the arranter clowne and all other contraries set neer together make one another the more discernable The second said that this proverb Truth begets hatred is not grounded upon truth for every man not only professes it but also gives testimony that he is pleased with it It is also the object of our understanding which never rests till it hath found it seeking it with no lesse earnestnesse than that wherewith the will seeks after goodnesse So that setting truth on the one side known to be such and on the other side untruth likewise known to be such it is as impossible for the understanding not to love the truth as for the will not to incline to a known good This love of truth is so remarkable in all persons that not only the Iudges according to their duties and places do use all possible diligence to finde out the truth of a fact but also all those which are not at all interessed in the businesse are notwithstanding so much taken with it that though their eares be extreamly tired with listening to the one party yet they have not the power to refuse audience to the other side that undertakes to discover falshood in his adversaries tale and if the understanding do not conceive the truth it never remaines any more satisfied than a hungry stomack would bee with painted meat Wherefore it belongs only to diseased mindes to hate truth as only to sore eyes to turne from the light Wherfore as men do not determine of colours tastes and other objects of the sense by the judgement of indisposed organs nor say sugar is bitter because the tongue in a fever being filled with choler judges so even so ought we not to say after the perverse judgement of the vicious that truth begets hatred and by consequence we are not to seek the cause of a thing which is not so The third said that whatsoever agrees to our nature and is found in us all cannot be called a disease but rather the contrary Now not only the understanding and the inner senses but also all the outer senses of man taken in generall and in particular are pleased with falshood and love to bee deceived Whence it comes to passe that of all the sects of Philosophers there was never any sect more esteemed than those which distrusted the abilities of our minde and held themselves in a continuall suspence or uncertainty nor was there ever any more ridiculous than those that were most confident of their opinions And because the acknowledging that we cannot know truth is a kinde of truth of which our understanding is uncapable therefore did Democritus lodge truth in a pit and others sayd she was flown to heaven both expressions signifying that shee is out of mens reach Besides our understanding loves its liberty no lesse than our will loves it and as the will should no longer bee free if it were necessarily carried to some object whence proceeded so many differing opinions concerning the chiefest good even so our understanding foreseeing that if at once it should know the truth it must cease to be free to turne from it it therefore preferres likelihoods and probabilities from whence ariseth that pleasure which wee take in disputes and problematicall altercations For which cause also the sect of Pyrrhon is by most men esteemed above all others And the greatest part of the Sciences and Arts have no foundation but upon the errours of our faculties Logick upon the weaknesse of our understanding in discerning of truth for the better disguising of which and so our greater pleasure Rhetorick or the Orators Art was invented the end of which is not at all to speak the truth but to perswade you to what it pleaseth Poesy is the art of lying artificially in feigning that which neither is nor was nor ever shall be as picture and especially perspective endeavours only to deceive us Even the most pleasing Arts as Cookery the better they abuse our taste and our other senses by their disguises the more are they esteemed Look into civill conversation it is nothing but disguisement and not to speak of the maxime of King Lewis the eleventh to which he restrained all the Latin of his Successor the greatest part of the civilities of our Courtiers and Citizens too reaches no further And therefore wee need not wonder much if the clownes that run contrary to the ordinary course of all other men render themselves odious to every one The fourth said that the understanding is pleased with doubts as the wooers of Penelope loved to court her mayds that is to say because they could not enjoy the mistresse Nor is there any that being hungry and having put his hand to the platter would like well to look on it through a paire of spectacles of many faces through which there would appeare so many dishes and in severall places that hee could not tell which was the right Wherefore it is certaine that we love truth so well that no untruth can be welcome to us unlesse it be covered with the ornaments of truth and all those arts of disguising shew what esteeme we have of untruth seeing it must be like truth that wee may like it 'T is true that none but God being able to discerne this sort of truth which consists in the agreeing of our thoughts with our words and deceit being very frequent in this matter civility and curtesie teacheth us rather to use words of complement than rude and ill pollisht language the