summary & analysis of “of truth” by Francis bacon * masterbloger.com
essay by Francis bacon
“Of truth” is one of the famous Francis Bacon’s essay in which Sir Bacon tries to tell the people about the advantages of the truth and the disadvantages of lies. It can be understood from the title that all the material and arguments Francis Bacon has produced are in favor of truth.
Truth and honesty are two things more similar to each other. Hence truth is associated with honesty. Here a question arises to mind that what is truth and its reality. Truth is very complex to be understood because truth in religion may be different from philosophy and philosophical truth may be different from moral, hence it keeps changing from sphere to sphere.
Hence Sir Francis Bacon in his essay says that the only truth that does not change and is certain is the scientific truth.
Sir Bacon starts with an explanation of Pilate’s school of thoughts in which we can see that Pilate was not interested in knowing what the truth actually means. Rather he has a spectacle frame of mind.
It is most frequent with people to have a change in their opinions. They consider fixed believes as they are state of slave mind and people should have free will to change them.
Sir Francis Bacon explains in his essay that people like to live with lies rather than, truth because it has a pleasant effect on them. They love to live with false opinions, false judgments, and we can say that they like to live in falsehood. This does not mean that they consider lies to be better than truth, because we can see that these people respect honest and truthful people.
This shows that they know deep in their souls that truth is better than lies. Bacon calls liars to be like snakes that move with their belly, not on foot. He further says that lies are the height of wickedness and hence it will cause judgment of God on all human beings on the Doom’s day.
Sir Bacon compares truth to the daylight which means that it will take us to brightness at the end. He then compares lies with candlelight which is pleasant compared to daylight but it takes us to darkness at the end. He says that truth is pleasant but when a lie is added to it.
He further tells the readers that the value of truth can be understood by the people who often speak and live with the truth. He further explains that earth can be made a Paradise but only with the help of truth.
Sir Francis Bacon then describes the views of a church writer who thinks of poetry as the wine of the devil. He says that poetry tells beautiful lies but they are forgotten easily because they do not settle in the mind.
He says that most of the damage is caused by the lies that sink into the mind and settle there. Hence he explains that truth is not only important in theory or philosophy but also in everyday life.
This essay by Sir Francis Bacon is rich in matter and manner. We can see that Sir Francis Bacon is trying to instill the love of truth in the reader’s mind. He tries to remove the natural love of lies present in human beings. His style is simple, precise, and clear. Whether it is the choice of words or the sentence, it is the most simple essay possible.
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Originally published at https://masterbloger.com on July 21, 2021.
