 Preface from The New Organon by Francis Bacon. This is LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The New Organon or True Directions Concerning the Interpretation of Nature. Francis Bacon, 1620, author's preface. Those who have taken upon them to lay down the law of nature as a thing already searched out and understood, whether they have spoken in simple assurance or professional affectation, have therein done philosophy and the sciences great injury. For as they have been successful in inducing belief, so they have been effective in quenching and stopping inquiry, and have done more harm by spoiling and putting an end to other men's efforts than good by their own. Those, on the other hand, who have taken a contrary course and asserted that absolutely nothing can be known, whether it were from hatred of the ancient Sophists or from uncertainty and fluctuation of mind or even from a kind of fullness of learning that they fell upon this opinion, have certainly advanced reasons for it that are not to be despised, but yet they have neither started from true principles nor rested in the just conclusion, zeal and affectation having carried them much too far. The more ancient of the Greeks, whose writings are lost, took up with better judgment a position between these two extremes, between the presumption of pronouncing on everything and the despair of comprehending anything, and though frequently and bitterly complaining of the difficulty of inquiry and the obscurity of things, and like impatient horses champing at the bit, they did not the less follow up their object and engage with nature thinking, it seems, that this very question, that is whether or not anything can be known, was to be settled not by arguing, but by trying. And yet they too, trusting entirely to the force of their understanding, applied no rule but made everything turn upon hard thinking and perpetual working and exercise of the mind. Now my method, though hard to practice, is easy to explain and it is this. I propose to establish progressive stages of certainty. The evidence of the sense helped and guarded by a certain process of correction I retain. But the mental operation which follows the act of sense I for the most part reject, and instead of it I open and lay out a new and certain path for the mind to proceed in, starting directly from the simple sensuous perception. The necessity of this was felt no doubt by those who attributed so much important to logic, showing thereby that they were in search of helps for the understanding and had no confidence in the native and spontaneous process of the mind. But this remedy comes too late to do any good, when the mind is already, through the daily intercourse and conversation of life, occupied with unsound doctrines and beset on all sides by vain imaginations. And therefore that art of logic coming, as I said, too late to the rescue, and no way able to set matters right again, has had the effect of fixing errors rather than disclosing truth. There remains but one course for the recovery of a sound and healthy condition, namely, that the entire work of the understanding be commenced afresh, and the mind itself be from the very onset not left to take its own course, but guided at every step, and the business be done as if by machinery. Certainly, if in things mechanical, men had set to work with their naked hands, without help or force of instruments, just as in things intellectual they have set to work with little else than the naked forces of the understanding. Very small would the matters have been which, even with their best efforts applied in conjunction, they could have attempted or accomplished. Now, to pause a while upon this example, and look in it as in a glass, let us suppose that some vast obelisk were, for the decoration of a triumph for some such magnificence, to be removed from its place, and that men should set to work upon it with their naked hands, would not any sober spectator think them mad? And if they should send for more people, thinking that in that way they might manage it, would he not think them all the matter? And if they then proceeded to make a selection, putting away the weaker hands, and using only the strong and vigorous, would he not think them madder than ever? And if lastly, not content with this, they resolved to call on the aid of an art of athletics, and required all their men to come with hands, arms, and sinews well anointed and medicated according to the rules of the art, would he not cry out that they were only taking pains that show a kind of method and discretion in their madness? Yet just so is it that men proceed in matters intellectual, with just the same kind of mad effort and useless combination of forces, when they hope great things either from the numbering cooperation or from the excellency and acuteness of individual wits, yea, and when they endeavor by logic, which may be considered as a kind of athletic art, the strength and the sinews of the understanding, with all this study and endeavor it is apparent to any true judgment there but applying the naked intellect all the time, whereas in every great work to be done by the hand of man it is manifestly impossible, without instruments and machinery, either for the strength of each to be exerted, or the strength of all to be united. Upon these premises two things occur to me of which, that they may not be overlooked, I would have men reminded. First, it falls out fortunately as I think for the allaying of contradictions and heart-burnings that the honor and reverence due to the ancients remains untouched and undiminished, while I may carry out my designs and at the same time reap the fruit of my modesty. For if I should profess that I, going the same road as the ancients, have something better to produce, their must-needs have been some comparison or rival between us, not to be avoided by any art of words, in respect of excellency or ability of wit, and though in this there would be nothing unlawful or new, for if there be anything misapprehended by them or falsely laid down, why may not I, using liberty common to all, take exception to it? Yet the contest, however just and allowable, would have been an unequal one perhaps in respect of the measure of my own powers. As it is, however, my object being to open a new way for the understanding away by them untried and unknown, the case is altered. Parties yield and emulation are at an end, and I appear merely as a guide to point out the road, an office of small authority, and depending more upon a kind of luck than upon any ability or excellency, and this much relates to the persons only, the other point of which I would have men reminded relates to the matter itself. Be it remembered then that I am far from wishing to interfere with the philosophy which now flourishes, or with any other philosophy more correct and complete than this which has been, or may hereafter be propounded. For I do not object to the use of this received philosophies or others like it, for supplying the matter for disputations or ornaments for discourse, for the professor's lecture and for the business of life. Nay, more, I declare openly that for these uses the philosophy which I bring forward will not be much available. It will not lie in the way. It cannot be caught up in passage. It does not flatter the understanding by conformity with preconceived notions, nor will it come down to the apprehensions of the vulgar except by its utility and effects. Let there be therefore, and may it be for the benefit of both, two streams and two dispensations of knowledge, and in like manner two tribes or kindreds of students in philosophy, tribes not hostile or alien to each other, but bound together by mutual services. Let there in short be one method for the cultivation, another for the invention of knowledge, and for those who prefer the former, either from hurry or for considerations of business or for want of mental power to take in and embrace the other, which must needs be most men's case. I wish that they may succeed to their desire in what they are about and what they are pursuing. But if there be any man who, not content to rest in and use the knowledge which has already been discovered, aspires to penetrate further, to overcome not an adversarian argument, but nature in action, to seek not pretty improbable conjectures, but certain and demonstrable knowledge. I invite all such to join themselves as true sons of knowledge with me, that passing by the outer courts of nature, those who have trodden we may find a way at length into her inner chambers. And to make my meaning clearer and to familiarize the thing by giving it a name, I have chosen to call one of these methods or ways anticipation of the mind, the other interpretation of nature. Moreover, I have one request to make. I have on my own part made it by my care and study that the things which I shall propound may be true, but should also be presented to men's minds, how strangely so ever preoccupied and obstructed, in a manner not harsh or unpleasant. It is but reasonable, however, especially in so great a restoration of learning and knowledge, that I should claim of men one favor in return, which is this. If anyone would form an opinion or judgment either out of his own observation, or out of the crowd of authorities, or out of the forms of demonstration, which have now acquired a sanction like that of judicial laws, concerning these speculations of mine, let him not hope that he can do it in passage or by the by, but let him examine the thing thoroughly. Let him make some little trial for himself of the way which I describe and lay out. Let him familiarize his thoughts with that subtlety of nature to which experience bears witness. Let him correct by seasonable patience and due delay the depraved and deep-rooted habits of his mind. And when all this is done, and he has begun to be his own master, let him, if he will, use his own judgment. End of Author's Preface to the New Organon, Francis Bacon, 1620. Read by ML Cohen, mojoemove411.com Cleveland, Ohio, September 2007 Death's Duel by John Dunn This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Adam Ringeth. Death's Duel, or a consolation to the soul against the dying life and living death of the body. Delivered in a sermon at Whitehall before the King's Majesty in the beginning of Lent, 1630. Being his last sermon and called by his Majesty's household the Doctor's Own Funeral Sermon. To the reader. This sermon was, by sacred authority, styled the Author's Own Funeral Sermon. Most fitly, whether we respect the time or matter, it was preached not many days before his death. As if, having done this, there remained nothing for him to do but to die. And the matter is of death, the occasion and subject of all funeral sermons. It hath been observed, this Reverend Man, that his faculty in preaching continually increased and that as he exceeded others at first, so at last he exceeded himself. This is his last sermon. I will not say it is there for his best because all his were excellent. Yet thus much. A dying man's words if they concern ourselves do usually make the deepest impression as being spoken most feelingly and with least affectation. Now, whom doth it concern to learn both the danger and benefit of death? Death is every man's enemy and intends hurt to all, though to many he be occasion of greatest good. This enemy we must all combat dying whom he living did almost conquer, having discovered the utmost of his power, the utmost of his cruelty. May we make such use of this and other the like preparatives that neither death, whensoever it shall come, may seem terrible, nor life tedious, how long so ever it shall last. Death's dual. Psalm 68, verse 20, infine and unto God the Lord belong the issues of death, i.e. from death. Buildings stand by the benefit of their foundations that sustain and support them and of their buttresses that comprehend and embrace them and of their contignations that knit and unite them. The foundations suffer them not to sink, the buttresses suffer them not to swerve, and the contignation and knitting suffers them not to cleave. The body of our building is in the former part of this verse. It is this. He that is our God is the God of salvation, at salutace of salvations in the plural, so it is in the original, the God that gives us spiritual and temporal salvation too. But of this building, the foundation, the buttresses, the contignations are in this part of the verse which constitutes our text and in the three diverse acceptations of the word amongst our expositors. Unto God the Lord belong the issues from death. For first, the foundation of this building, that our God is the God of all salvation, is laid in this. That unto this God the Lord belong the issues of death. That is, it is in his power to give us an issue and deliverance even then when we are brought to the jaws and teeth of death and to the lips of that whirlpool, the grave. And so in this acceptation, this Exodus mortists this issue of death, is Liberatio ab morte, a deliverance from death. And this is the most obvious and most ordinary acceptation of these words and that upon which our translation lays hold the issues from death. And then secondly, the buttresses that comprehend and settle this building, that he that is our God is the God of all salvation, are thus raised. Unto God the Lord belong the issues of death. That is, the disposition and manner of our death. What kind of issue and transmigration we shall have out of this world, whether prepared or sudden, whether violent or natural, whether in our perfect senses or shaken and disordered by sickness, there is no condemnation to be argued out of that, no judgment to be made upon that. For how so ever they die, precious in his sight is the death of his saints. And with him are the issues of death. The ways of our departing out of this life are in his hands. And so in this sense of the words, this exodus mortis, the issues of death, is liberatio in morte, a deliverance in death. Not that God will deliver us from dying, but that he will have a care of us in the hour of death of what kind so ever our passage be. And in this sense of acceptation of the words, the natural frame and contexture doth well and pregnantly administer unto us. And then, lastly, the contignation and knitting of this building, that he that is our God is the God of all salvation, consists in this, unto this God the Lord belong the issues of death. That is, that this God the Lord, having united and knit both natures in one, and being God, having also come into this world in our flesh, he could have no other means to save us. He could have no other issue out of this world, nor return to his former glory, but by death. And so in this sense, this exodus mortis, this issue of death, is liberatio per mortem, a deliverance by death, by the death of this God, our Lord Christ Jesus. And this is St. Augustine's acceptation of the words, and those many ingrate persons that have adhered to him. In three lines then, we shall look upon these words. First, as the God of power, the almighty Father, rescues his servants from the jaws of death. And then, as the God of mercy, the glorious Son, rescued us by taking upon himself this issue of death. And then, between these two, as the God of comfort, the Holy Ghost rescues us from all discomfort by his blessed impressions beforehand, however be ordained for us. Yet this exodus mortis shall be in troitus in vitum. Our issue in death shall be an entrance into everlasting life. And these three considerations, our deliverance a morte, in morte, per mortem, from death, in death, and by death, will abundantly do all the offices of the foundations, and the indignation of this our building, that he that is our God is the God of all salvation, because unto this God the Lord belong the issues of death. First then, we consider this exodus mortis to be liberatio a morte, that with God the Lord are the issues of death, and therefore in all our death and deadly calamities in this life we may justly hope of a good issue from him. In all our periods of life are so many passages from death to death. Our very birth and entrance into this life is exodus a morte, an issue from death. For in our mother's womb we are dead, so is that we do not know we live, not so much as we do in our sleep. Neither is there any grave so close or so putrid a prison, as the womb would be unto us if we stayed in it beyond our time, or died there before our time. In the grave the worms do not kill us. We breed and feed and then kill those worms which we ourselves produced. In the womb the dead child kills the mother that conceived it and is a murderer, a parasite, even after it is dead. And if we be not dead so in the womb so is that being dead we kill her that gave us our first life, our life of vegetation, yet we are dead so as David's idols are dead. In the womb we have eyes and sea not, ears and ear not. There in the womb we are fitted for works of darkness, all the wild deprived of light. And there in the womb we are taught cruelty, being fed with blood and may be damned though we be never born. Of our very making in the womb, David says I am wonderfully and fearfully made and such knowledge is too excellent for me for even that is the Lord's doing and it is wonderful in our eyes. Ipse fekit nos it is he that have made us and not we ourselves nor our parents neither. Thy hands have made me and fashioned me round about Seth Job and as the original word is thou has taken pains about me and yet says he thou dost destroy me. Though I be the master piece of the greatest master man is so. Yet if thou do know more for me if thou leave me where thou mayest me destruction will follow. The womb which should be the house of life becomes death itself if God leave us there. That which God threaten so often. The shutting of a womb is not so heavy nor so uncomfortable a curse in the first as in the latter shutting nor in the shutting of barrenness as in the shutting of weakness when children are come to the birth and no strength to bring forth. It is the exaltation of misery to fall from a near hope of happiness and in that vehement implication the prophet expresses the highest of God's anger. Give them oh Lord what wilt thou give them give them a miscarrying womb. Therefore as soon as we are men that is eliminated quickened in the womb though we cannot ourselves our parents have to say on our behalf wretched man that he is who shall deliver him from this body of death if there be no deliverer. It must be he that said to Jeremiah before I formed the I knew thee and before thou came and started the womb I sanctified thee. We are not sure that there was no kind of ship nor boat to fish in nor to pass by till God arrived Noah that absolute form of the ark. That word which the Holy Ghost by Moses useth for the ark is common to all kinds of boats they bar and is the same word that Moses useth for the boat that he was exposed in that his mother laid him in an ark of bulrushes. But we are sure that Eve had no midwife when she was delivered of Cain therefore she might well say Pozeti virum adomino from the Lord. Holy, entirely from the Lord it is the Lord that enabled me to conceive. The Lord that infused a quickening soul into that conception. The Lord that brought into the world that which himself had quickened. Without all this might Eve say my body had been but the house of death and Domini, Domini sent Exodus mortis to God the Lord belong the issues of death. But then this Exodus mortis is but entroitus in mortum this issue, this deliverance from that death the death of the womb is an entrance a delivering over to another death the manifold deaths of this world. We have a winding sheet in our mother's womb which grows with us from our conception and we come into the world wound up in that winding sheet for we come to seek a grave and as prisoners discharged of actions may lie for fees so when the womb have discharged us yet we are bound to it by cords of hestai by such a string is that we cannot go thence nor stay there. We celebrate our own funerals with cries even at our birth as though our three score and ten years life were spent in our mother's labor and our circle made up in the first point thereof. We beg our baptism with another sacrament, with tears and we come into a world that lasts many ages but we last not. In Domo patris says our savior, speaking of heaven multi manziones diverse and durable so that if a man cannot possess a martyr's house he hath shed no blood for Christ yet he may have a confessors he hath been ready to glorify God in the shedding of his blood and if a woman cannot possess a virgin's house she hath embraced the holy state of marriage yet she may have a matron's house she hath brought forth and brought up children in the fear of God in Domo patris in my father's house, in heaven there are many mansions but here upon earth the son of man hath not where to lay his head set he himself non e terrim derit philiis hominum how then hath God given this earth to the sons of men he hath given them earth for their materials to be made of earth and he hath given them earth for their grave and sepulcher to return and resolve to earth but not for their possession here we have no continuing city nay no cottage that continues nay no persons no bodies that continue whatsoever moved Saint Jerome to call the journeys of the Israelites in the wilderness mansions the word, the word is nasang signifies but a journey but a peregrination even the Israel of God hath no mansions but journeys, pilgrimages in this life by what measure did Jacob measure his life to Pharaoh the days of the years of my pilgrimage and though the apostle did not say morimer that whilst we are in the body we are dead yet he says peregrinimer whilst we are in the body we are but in a pilgrimage and we are absent from the Lord he might have said dead for this whole world is but in universal church yard but our common grave and the life and motion that the greatest persons have in it is but as the shaking of buried bodies in their grave by an earthquake that which we call life is but have domidum mortium a week of death seven days seven periods of our life spent in dying a dying seven times over and there is an end our birth dies in infancy and our infancy dies in youth and youth and the rest die in age and age also dies and determines all nor do all these youth out of infancy or age out of youth arise so as the phoenix out of the ashes of another phoenix formerly dead but as a wasp or a serpent out of a carrion or as a snake out of dung our youth is worse than our infancy and our age worse than our youth our youth is hungry and thirsty after those sins which our infancy knew not our age is sorry and angry that it cannot pursue those sins which our youth did and besides all the way so many deaths that is so many deadly calamities accompany every condition and every period of this life as that death itself would be an ease to them that suffer them upon this sense doth Job wish that God had not given him an issue from the first death from the womb and now brought me forth out of the womb oh that I had given up the ghost and no I seen me I should have been as though I had not been and not only the impatient Israelites in their murmuring would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt but Elijah himself when he fled from Jezebel and went for his life as that text says under the juniper tree requested that he might die and said it is enough now oh Lord take away my life so Jonah justifies his impatience nay his anger towards God himself now oh Lord take I beseech thee my life from me for it is better to die than to live and when God asked him doth thou well to be angry for this he replies I do well to be angry even unto death how much worse a death than death is this life which so good men would so often change for death but if my case be as St. Paul's case Quota D.A. Morior that I die daily that something heavier than death fall upon me everyday if my case be David's case Quota D.A. Mortificomer all the day long we are killed that not only every day but every hour of the day something heavier than death fall upon me though that be true of me conceptus impicatus I was shaped in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me there I died one death though that be true of me natus filius eerai I was born not only the child of sin of the wrath of God for sin which is a heavier death yet Domini Domini sunt exodus mortus with God the Lord are the issues of death and after a Job and a Joseph and a Jeremiah and a Daniel I cannot doubt of a deliverance and if no other deliverance could do more to his glory and my good yet he hath the keys of death and he can let me out at that door deliver me from the manifold deaths of this world the Omni D.A. and the Tota D.A. the everyday's death and every hour's death by that one death the final dissolution of body and soul the end of all but then is that the end of all is that dissolution of body and soul the last death that the body shall suffer for of spiritual death we speak not now it is not it is not though this be exodus amorte it is in troitus in mortum though it be an issue from manifold deaths of this world yet it is an entrance into the death of corruption and putrefaction and verbiculation and incineration and dispersion in and from the grave in which every dead man dies over again it was a prerogative peculiar to Christ to die this death not to see corruption what gave him this privilege not joseph's great proportion of gums and spices that might have preserved his body from corruption and incineration longer than he needed it longer than three days but it would not have done it forever what preserved him then did his exemption and freedom from original sin preserve him from this corruption and incineration it is true that original sin did not have induced this corruption and incineration upon us if we had not sinned in Adam mortality had not put on immortality as the apostle speaks nor corruption had not put on incorruption but we had had our trans migration from this to the other world without any mortality any corruption at all but yet since Christ took sin upon him so far as made him mortal he had it so far too he had no corruption and incineration though he had no original sin in himself what preserved him then did the hypostatical union of both natures God and man preserved him from this corruption and incineration it is true that this was a most powerful embalming to be embalmed with the divine nature itself to be embalmed with eternity was able to preserve him from corruption and incineration forever and he was embalmed so embalmed with the divine nature itself even in his body as well as in his soul for the Godhead the divine nature did not depart but remained still united to his dead body in the grave but yet for all this powerful embalming his hypostatical union of both natures we see Christ did die and for all his union which made him God and man for the union of the body and soul makes the man and he whose soul and body are separated by death as long as that state lasts is properly no man and therefore as in him the dissolution of body and soul was no dissolution of the hypostatical union so there is nothing that constrains us to say that though the flesh of Christ had seen corruption and incineration in the grave this had not been any dissolution of the hypostatical union for the divine nature the Godhead might have remained with all the elements and principles of Christ's body as well as it did with the two constitutive parts of his person his body and his soul this incorruption then was not in Joseph's gums and spices nor was it in Christ's innocence an exemption from original sin nor was it that is it is not necessary to say it was in the hypostatical union but this incorruptableness of his flesh is most conveniently placed in that non-dabbies thou wilt not suffer thy holy one to see corruption we look no further for causes or reasons in the mysteries of religion but to the will and pleasure of God Christ himself limited his inquisition in that Eta est even so father for so it seemeth good in thy sight Christ's body did not see corruption therefore because God had decreed it should not the humble soul and only the humble soul is the religious soul rests himself upon God's purposes and the decrees of God which he hath declared and manifested not such as are conceived and imagined in ourselves though upon some probability some versimilitude so in our present case Peter proceeds in his sermon at Jerusalem and so Paul and his at Antioch they preached Christ to have been risen without seeing corruption not only because God had decreed it but because he had manifested that decree in his prophet therefore Doth St. Paul cite by special number the second psalm for that decree and therefore both St. Peter and St. Paul cite for it that place in the 16th psalm for when God declares his decree in purpose in the words of his prophet or when he declares it in the real execution of the decree then he makes it ours then he manifests it to us and therefore as the mysteries of our religion are not the objects of our reason but by faith we rest on God's decree and purpose it is so oh God because it is thy will it should be so so God's decrees are ever to be considered a manifestation thereof all manifestation is either in the word of God or in the execution of the decree and when these two concur and meet it is the strongest demonstration that can be when therefore I find those marks of adoption and spiritual affiliation which are delivered in the word of God to be upon me when I find that real execution of his good purpose upon me in obedience and under the conditions which are evidences of adoption and spiritual affiliation then so long as I see these marks and live so I may safely comfort myself in a holy certitude and a modest infallibility of my adoption Christ determines himself in that the purpose of God was manifest to him Saint Peter and Saint Paul determine themselves in those two ways of knowing the purpose of God the word of God before the execution of the decree in the fullness of time it was prophesied before said they and it is performed now Christ is risen without seeing corruption now this which is so singularly peculiar to him that his flesh should not see corruption at his second coming his coming to judgment shall extend to all that are then alive their hesties shall not see corruption because as the apostle says and says as a secret, as a mystery behold I show you a mystery we shall not all sleep that is not continue in the state of the dead in the grave but we shall all be changed in an instant we shall have a dissolution and in the same instant to read integration a re-compacting of body and soul and that shall be truly a death and truly a resurrection but no sleeping and corruption but for us that die now and sleep in the state of the dead we must all pass this posthum death this death after death this death after burial this dissolution after dissolution this death of corruption and putrefaction of remiculation and incineration of dissolution and dispersion in and from the grave in these bodies that have been the children of royal parents and the parents of royal children must say with Job corruption thou art my father and to the worm thou art my mother and my sister miserable riddle when the same worm must be my mother and my sister and myself miserable incest when I must be married to my mother and my sister and be both father and mother to my own mother and sister and bear that worm which is all that miserable penury when my mouth shall be filled with dust and the worm shall feed and feed sweetly upon me when the ambitious man shall have no satisfaction if the poorest alive tread upon him nor the poorest receive any contentment in being made equal to princes for they shall be equal but in dust one diet that is full strength being holy at ease and in quiet and another dies in the bitterness of his soul and never eats with pleasure but they lie down alike in the dust and the worm covers them in Job and in Isaiah it covers them and is spread under them the worm is spread under thee and the worm covers thee there are the mats and the carpets that lie under there are the state and the canopy that hang over the greatest of the sons of men even those bodies that were the temples of the holy ghost come to this dilapidation to ruin, to rubbish to dust even the Israel of the Lord and Jacob himself have no other specification no other denomination but that vermus Jacob thou warm of Jacob the consideration of this posthum death this death after burial that after God with whom are the issues of death hath delivered me from the death of the womb by bringing me into this world and from the manifold deaths of the world by laying me in the grave I must die again in an incineration of this flesh and in a dispersion of that dust that that monarch who spread over many nations alive must in his dust lie in a corner of the dead lead and there but so long as that lead will last and that private and retired man that thought himself his own forever and never came forth must in his dust of the grave be published and such are the revolutions of the grave be mingled with the dust of every highway and of every dung hill and swallowed in every puddle and pond this is the most inglorious and contemptible vilification the most deadly and peremptory nullification of man that we can consider God seems to have carried the declaration of his power to a great height when he sets the prophet Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones and says son of man can these bones live as though it had been impossible and yet they did the Lord laid sinews upon them and flesh and breathed into them but in that case there were bones to be seen something visible of which it might be said can this thing live but in this death of incineration and dispersion of dust we see nothing that we call that man's if we say can this dust live perchance it cannot it may be the mere dust of the earth which never did live never shall it may be the dust of that man's worm which did live but shall know more it may be the dust of another man that concerns not him of whom it was asked this death of incineration and dispersion is to natural reason the most irrecoverable death of all and yet dominie dominie sunt exotus mortus unto God the Lord belong the issues of death and by recompacting this dust and remaining the same body with the same soul he shall in a blessed and glorious resurrection give me such an issue from this death as shall never pass into any other death but establish me into a life that shall last as long as the Lord of life himself and so have you that that belongs to the first acceptation of these words unto God the Lord belong the issues of death and so from the womb to the grave and in the grave itself we pass from death to death yet as Daniel speaks the Lord our God is able to deliver us and he will deliver us and so we pass into our second accommodation of these words unto God the Lord belong the issues of death that it belongs to God and not to man to pass a judgment upon us at our death and we will conclude a dereliction on God's part upon the manner thereof those indications which the physicians receive and those presiditions which they give for death or recovery in the patient they receive and they give out of the grounds and rules of their art but we have no such rule or art to give a presidition of spiritual death and damnation upon any such indication as we see in any dying man often enough to be sorry but not to despair we may be deceived both ways we used to comfort ourselves in the death of a friend if it be testified that he went away like a lamb that is without any reluctation but God knows that may be accompanied with a dangerous damp and stupefaction and insensibility of his present state our blessed savior suffered collectations with death and a sadness even in his soul to death and an agony even to a bloody sweat in his body and expostulations with God and exclamations upon the cross he was a devout man who set upon his death bed or death turf for he was a hermit septuaginta annus domini servivisti et moritimes hast thou served a good master three score in ten years and now art thou loath to go into his presence yet Hilarion was loath Barleyam was a devout man a hermit too that said that day he died cogita te jodie caipiste servire domino et jodie finitorum consider this to be the first day's service that ever thou didst thy master to glorify him in a christianly and a constant death and if thy first day be thy last day too how as soon dost thou come to receive thy wages yet Barleyam could have been content to have stayed longer forth make no ill conclusions upon any man's loathness to die for the mercies of God work momentarily in minutes and many times insensibly to bystanders or any other than the party departing and then upon violent deaths inflicted as upon malefactors Christ himself have forbidden us by his own death to make any ill conclusion for his own death had those impressions in it he was reputed he was executed as a malefactor and no doubt many of them who concurred to his death did believe him to be so of sudden death there are scarce examples to be found in the scriptures upon good men for death in battle cannot be called sudden death but God governs not by examples but by rules and therefore make no ill conclusion upon sudden death nor upon distemper's neither though perchance accompanied with some words of diffidence and distrust in the mercies of God the tree lies as it falls it is true but it is not the last stroke that fells the tree nor the last word nor gasp that qualifies the soul still pray we for a peaceable life against sudden death and for a time of repentance against sudden death and for sober and modest assurance against distempered and diffident death but never make any ill conclusions upon persons overtaken with such death Dominie Dominie sent exotus mortus to God the Lord belong the issues of death and he received samson who went out of this world in such a manner consider it actively consider it passively in his own death whom he slew with himself as was subject to interpretation hard enough yet the holy ghost have moved Saint Paul to celebrate samson in his great catalogue and so doth all the church our critical day is not the very day of our death but the whole course of our life I thank him that prays for me when the bell tolls but I thank him much more that catacyses me or preaches to me or instructs me how to live fac hoc et vive there is my security the mouth of the Lord hath said it do this and thou shalt live but though I do it yet I shall die too die a bodily a natural death but God never mentions never seems to consider that death the bodily the natural death God doth not say live well and thou shalt die well that is an easy a quiet death but live well here and thou shalt live well forever as the first part of a sentence pieces well with the last and never respects never harkens after the parenthesis that comes between so doth a good life here flow into an eternal life without any consideration what so manner of death we die but whether the gate of my prison be opened with an oiled key by a gentle and preparing sickness or the gate be hewn down by a violent death or the gate be burnt down by a raging and frantic fever a gate into heaven I shall have for from the Lord is the cause of my life and with God the Lord are the issues of death and further we carry not this second acceptation of the words as this issue of death is liberatio in mortae we must care that the soul be safe what agony so ever the body suffers in the hour of death but pass to our third part and last part as this issue of death is liberatio paramortem a deliverance by the death of another suferantium yob audisti et fidisti phenum dominii says st. james verse 11 you have heard of the patience of Job says he all this while you have done that for in every man calamitous miserable man a Job speaks now see the end of the Lord sayeth that apostle which is not that end that the Lord proposed to himself salvation to us nor the end which he proposes to us conformity to him but see the end of the Lord says he what himself came to death and a painful and a shameful death but why did he die and why die so quia dominii dominii sund exodus mortus as st. augustin interpreting this text answers that question because to this God our Lord belonged the issues of death quid apertius di caretor says he there what can be more obvious more manifest than this sense of these words in the former part of this verse it is said he that is our God is the God of salvation deus salvos facendi so he reads it the God that must save us who can that be says he but Jesus for therefore that name was given him because he was to save us and to this Jesus says he this saviour belong the issues of death nec opportuneim de hack vita allios exodus haberre quam mortis being come into this life in our mortal nature he could not go out of this life any other way but by death ideodictum says he therefore it is said to God the Lord belonged the issues of death at ostendretor moriendo nos salvos facturum to show us that his way to save us was to die and from this text doth saint isidore prove that Christ was truly man which as many sex of heretics denied as that he was truly God because to him though he were dominus dominus as the text doubles it God the Lord yet to him to God the Lord belonged the issues of death opportuneim pati mor cannot be said and Christ himself says of himself these things Christ ought to suffer he had no other way but death so then this part of our sermon must needs be a passion sermon Christ's life was a continual passion all our lent may be a continual good friday Christ's painful life took off none of the pains of his death he felt not the less then for having felt so much before nor will anything that shall be said before lessen but rather enlarge the devotion to that which shall be said of his passion at the time of due solemnization thereof Christ bled ought to drop the less at the last at his circumcision before nor will you atere the less that if you shed some now and therefore be now content to consider with me how to this God the Lord belonged the issues of death that God this Lord the Lord of life could die is a strange contemplation that the red sea could be dry that the sun could stand still that an oven could be seven times heat and not burn that lions could be hungry and not bite is strange miraculously strange but super miraculous that God could die but that God would die is an exaltation of that but even of that also it is a super exaltation that God should die must die non-exitus said saint Augustine God the Lord had no issue but by death and operative pati says Christ himself all this Christ ought to suffer was bound to suffer deus ultimo deus says David God is the God of Revenges he would not pass over the son of man unrevenged and punished but then deus ultimum libere egit says that place God of Revenges works freely he punishes he spares whom he will and would he not spare himself he would not delectio fortus ultimus love is strong as death stronger it drew in death that naturally is not welcome si possibile says Christ if it be possible let this cup pass when his love expressed in a former decree with his father had made it impossible many waters quench not love Christ tried many he was baptized out of his love and his love determined not there he mingled blood with water in his agony and that determined not his love he wept pure blood all his blood at all his eyes at all his pores in his flagellations and thorns to the Lord our God to the Lord our God belongs to the issues of blood and these expressed but these did not quench his love he would not spare he could not spare himself there was nothing more free more voluntary more spontaneous than the death of Christ it is true libere egit he died voluntarily but yet when we consider the contract that had passed between his father and him there was an opportunity a kind of necessity upon him all this Christ ought to suffer and when shall we date this obligation this opportunity this necessity when shall we say that began certainly this decree by which Christ was to suffer all this was an eternal decree and was there anything before that that was eternal infinite love eternal love be pleased to follow this home and to consider it seriously that what liberty so ever we can conceive in Christ to die or not to die this necessity of dying this decree is as eternal as that liberty and yet how small a matter made he of this necessity and this dying his father calls it but a bruise and but a bruising of his heel the serpent shall bruise his heel and yet that was that the serpent should practice and compass his death himself calls it but a baptism as though he were to be the better for it I have a baptism to be baptized with and he was in pain till it was accomplished and yet this baptism was his death the holy ghost calls it joy for the joy which was set before him he endured the cross which was not a joy of his reward after his passion but a joy that filled him even in the midst of his torments and arose from him when Christ calls his calicam a cup and no worse can he drink of my cup he speaks not odiously not with detestation of it indeed it was a cup of all the world and quid retribuum says David what shall I render to the Lord answer you with David acipium calicam I will take the cup of salvation take it that cup is salvation his passion if not into your present imitation yet into your present contemplation and behold how that Lord that was God yet could die would die must die for our salvation that Moses and Elias talked with Christ in the transfiguration both St. Matthew and St. Mark tells us but what they talked of only St. Luke D.K. Bant excessum aeus says he they talked of his disease of his death which was to be accomplished at Jerusalem the word is of his exodus the very word of our text exodus his issue by death Moses who in his exodus have prefigured this issue of our Lord and in passing Israel out of Egypt through the red sea had foretold in that actual prophecy Christ passing of mankind through the sea of his blood and Elias whose exodus and issue of this world was a figure of Christ's ascension great satisfaction in talking with our blessed Lord of the full consummation of all this in his death which was to be accomplished at Jerusalem our meditation of his death should be more visceral and affect us more because it is of a thing already done the ancient Romans had a certain tenderness and detestation of the name of death they could not name death no not in their wills there they could not say see mori contigaret but see quid humanitas contigat not if or when I die but when the course of nature is accomplished upon me to us that speak daily of the death of Christ he was crucified, dead and buried can the memory or the mention of our own death be irksome or bitter there are in these latter times amongst us that name death freely enough and the death of God but in blasphemous oaths and execrations miserable men who shall therefore be said never to have named Jesus because they have named him too often and therefore here Jesus say neschivi vos I never knew you because they made themselves too familiar with him Moses and Elias talked with Christ of his death only in a holy and joyful sense of the benefit which they and all the world were to receive by that discourses of religion should not be out of curiosity but to edification and then they talked with Christ of his death at that time when he was in the greatest height of glory that ever he admitted in this world that is his transfiguration and we are afraid to speak to the great men of this world of their death but nourishing them with determination of immortality and immutability but bonem as nobis essay hick as saint Peter said there it is good to dwell here in this consideration of his death and therefore transfer we are tabernacle our devotions through some of those steps which God the Lord made to his issue of death that day taking the whole day from the hour that Christ received the Passover upon Thursday unto the hour in which he died the next day make this present day that day in thy devotion and consider what he did and remember what you have done before he instituted and celebrated the sacrament which was after the eating of the Passover he proceeded to that act of humility to wash his disciples feet even Peters who for a while resisted him in thy preparation to the holy and blessed sacrament hast thou with a sincere humility sought a reconciliation with all the world even from those that have been averse from it and refused that reconciliation from thee if so and not else thou hast spent this first part of his last day in a conformity with him after the sacrament he spent the time till night in prayer in preaching in Psalms hast thou considered that a worthy receiving of the sacrament consists in a continuation of holiness after as well as in a preparation before if so thou hast therein also conformed thyself to him so Christ spent his time till night at night he went into the garden to pray and he prayed prolictious he spent much time in prayer how much? as it is literally expressed that he prayed there three several times and then returning to his disciples after his first prayer and finding them asleep said could ye not watch with me one hour is collected that he spent three hours in prayer I dare scarce ask thee whether thou wentest or how thou disposed of thyself when it grew dark and after last night if that time were spent in a holy to God and a submission of thy will to his it was spent in a conformity to him in that time and in those prayers was his agony and bloody sweat I will hope that thou didst pray but not every ordinary and customary prayer but prayer actually accompanied with shedding of tears and dispositively in a readiness to shed blood for his glory in necessary cases puts thee into a conformity with him about midnight he was taken and bound with a kiss are thou not too conformable to him in that is not that too literally to exactly thy case at midnight to have been taken and bound with a kiss from thence he was carried back to Jerusalem first to Anasthen to Caiaphas and as late as it was then he was examined and buffered and delivered over to the custody of those officers from whom he received all those orisions and violences the covering of his face the spitting upon his face the blasphemies of words and the smartness of blows which that gospel mentions in which compass fell that Gallicinium that crowing of the cock which called up Peter to his repentance how thou passenced that all that time thou knowest if thou didst anything that needest Peter's tears and has not shed them let me be thy cock do it now now by master in the unworthiest of his servants looks back upon thee do it now be times in the morning so soon as it was day the Jews held a council in the high priest's hall and agreed upon their evidence against him and then carried him to Pilate who is to be his judge didst thou accuse thyself when thou waketh this morning and wasst thou content even with false accusations that is rather to suspect actions to have been sin which were not than to smother and justify such as were truly sins then thou spentest that hour in conformity to him Pilate found no evidence against him and therefore to ease himself and to pass a compliment upon Herod tetrarch of Galilee who was at that time at Jerusalem because Christ being a Galilean was of Herod's jurisdiction Pilate set him to Herod and rather as a madman than a malifactor Herod remanded him with scorn to Pilate to proceed against him and this was about eight o'clock as thou been content to come to this inquisition this examination this agitation this coberation this pursuit of thy conscience to sift it, to follow it from the sins of thy youth from the sins of thy bed to the sins of thy board and from the substance to the circumstances of thy sins that is time spent like thy saviours Pilate would have saved Christ by using the privilege of the day in his behalf because that day one prisoner was to be delivered but they chose for Abbas he would have saved him from death by satisfying their fury with inflicting other torments upon him scorching and crowning with thorns and loading him with many scornful and ignominious contumelies but they regarded him not they pressed a crucifying hast thou gone about to redeem thy sin by fasting by alms by disciplines and mortifications in way of satisfaction to the justice of God that will not serve that is not the right way we press an utter crucifying of that sin that governs thee and that conforms thee to Christ towards noon Pilate gave judgment and they made such haste to execution as that by noon he was upon the cross there now hangs that sacred body upon the cross re-baptized in his own tears and sweat and embalmed in his own blood alive there are those bowels of compassion which are so conspicuous so manifested as that you may see them through his wounds there those glorious eyes grew faint in their sight so as the son ashamed to survive them departed with his light too and then that son of God who was never from us and yet had now come a new way unto us in assuming our nature delivers that soul out of his father's hands by a new way a voluntary emission of it into his father's hands for though to this God our Lord belong these issues of death so that considered in his own contract he must necessarily die yet at no breach or battery which they had made upon his sacred body issued his soul but a mesite he gave up the ghost and as God breathed his soul into the first atom the second atom breathed his soul into God into the hands of God there we leave you in that blessed dependency to hang upon him that hangs upon the cross there bathe in his tears there suck at his wounds and lie down in peace in his grave till he vouchsafe you a resurrection and an ascension into that kingdom which he hath prepared for you with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood Amen End of Death's Duel Recording by Adam Ringuth For more information or to volunteer please visit LibreVox.org Among the well-known Vaubville entertainers must be mentioned Mr. Harry Houdini whose celebrated feats with handcuffs straitjackets and various restraints used to confine the insane and fractious or well-known the public always seems to be interested in seeing the other fellow get away from a tight place so that it is little wonder that Houdini's audiences our attention has recently been attracted to a number of feats which he has been performing in New York and other cities the culmination of which perhaps is the aquatic box trick which we will now describe on Sunday July 7th Mr. Houdini invited a party of newspaper men and those interested in magic to witness a very remarkable box trick on New York Bay this event was scheduled to take place at a pier on the East River but owing to police interference was transferred to the deck of a large lighter which was towed to the dock of the quarter masters department at Governor's Island as this was federal property the police could not interfere with this act a large wooden box 40 inches long 22 inches wide and 24 inches high was provided this box was carefully examined and no indication of panels, bolts or springs was detected after divesting himself of his outer clothing and after a committee had seen and not have any concealed keys or devices for picking the locks of the handcuffs he submitted cheerfully to be manacled with leg irons two pairs of handcuffs and elbow irons any of the spectators had the privilege of bringing their own handcuffs if they so desired as Houdini does not care about furnishing articles of this kind when he is making his more important tests the cover of the box was removed and Houdini crouched in it in a stooped position somewhat resembling the doubling up of a jackknife the cover was then nailed in place with 36 wire nails and the entire box was banded with band iron or as it is technically known packed for export on each side a length of iron sewer pipe was secured and iron sash weights were introduced into the pipe thus affording a convenient method of weighing down the box so as to cause it to sink to the level of the water 200 pounds of iron was used holes had been bored in it to permit the entrance of the water to be fully submerged the box was then carefully wrote so that no escape from it could have been possible had the nails and band irons been non-existent or have given away some of the planks from the lighter were removed and the box was shoved out on them and was finally dumped in the water in exactly a minute and 10 seconds Houdini emerged from the water swimming toward the lifeboat which had been provided the act was witnessed by thousands of spectators who crowded the decks of three ferry boats and rolled on to the deck with the aid of one of the spars of the lighter and the box was carefully examined nothing was found in it except the useless manacles which had failed to bind Houdini under the most adverse conditions considering the danger of this feat in the entire absence of any paraphernalia such as traps etc. it appears to be all the more wonderful this may be regarded as one of the most remarkable tricks ever performed and it is only regrettable that a feat of this magnitude cannot be tried before a larger gathering of spectators Houdini's box tricks, his milk can trick and similar entertaining feats will not appeal to the average person as much as his bridge dives which have taken place in all parts of the world we were able to show two or three photographs which give an adequate idea of the remarkable nature of a feat of this kind in one of the engravings we see Houdini with his hands manacled behind his back and his arms also confined by elbow irons this photograph was taken just before an 89 foot jump at Sydney, Australia the next photograph shows the agonized face of Houdini after he struck the water at the wrong angle blood flowed from his nose and mouth this goes to show that the career of the professional strong men jailbreaker and handcuff king has not been all together unfraught with danger several of his imitators have tried similar feats with disastrous results such as broken ribs and even two of them paid the penalty with their lives being drowned with the manacles still on their wrists with the certainty of an act of this kind if unsuccessful it would be almost impossible to rescue and resuscitate a person before he is drowned a third photograph shows the position of Houdini's body and his famous jump from the Queens Bridge, Melbourne, Australia in March 1910 his hands were heavily ironed behind his back with handcuffs and he succeeded in reaching the surface in a surprisingly short space of time in this case he was underwater about two minutes at the time of this dive the shock of Mr. Houdini striking the water was great enough to bring to the surface the body of a man who had been drowned some days before thus naturally adding greatly to the excitement we do not pretend to give any explanation of Houdini's performances we can only say that he states that most of the public exposés of tricks of this kind are absolutely worthless as they would not work in practice under the severe conditions of a committee of examination possibly some of our readers would not be able to understand the solutions of these mysteries if so we should be pleased to hear from them end of handcuff releases under difficulties the remarkable feats of Harry Houdini read by Leanne Howlett the fight for conservation by Gifford Pinchot the moral issue this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the fight for conservation the moral issue the central thing for which conservation stands is to make this country the best possible place to live in both for us and our descendants it stands against the waste of the natural resources which cannot be renewed such as coal and iron it stands for the perpetuation of the resources which can be renewed such as the food producing soils and the forests and most of all it stands for an equal opportunity for every American citizen to get his fair share of benefit from these resources both now and hereafter conservation stands for the same kind of practical common sense management of this country by the people that every businessman stands for in the handling of his own business it believes in prudence and foresight instead of reckless blindness it holds that resources now public property should not become the basis for oppressive private monopoly and it demands the complete and orderly development of all our resources for the benefit of all the people instead of the partial exploitation of them for the benefit of a few it recognizes fully the right of the present generation to use what it needs and all it needs of the natural resources now available but it recognizes equally our obligation so to use what we need that our descendants shall not be deprived of what they need conservation has much to do with the welfare of the average man of today it proposes to secure a continuous and abundant supply of the necessaries of life which means a reasonable cost of living and business stability it advocates fairness in the distribution of the benefits which flow from the natural resources it will matter very little to the average citizen when scarcity comes and prices rise whether he cannot get what he needs on the left or because he cannot afford to pay for it in both cases the essential fact is that he cannot get what he needs conservation holds that it is about as important to see that people in general get the benefit of our natural resources as to see that there shall be natural resources left conservation is the most democratic movement this country has known for a generation it holds that the people have not only the right but the duty to control the use of the natural resources which are the great sources of prosperity and it regards natural resources by the special interests unless their operations are under effective public control as a moral wrong conservation is the application of common sense to the common problems for the common good and I believe it stands nearer to the desires aspirations purposes of the average man than any other policy now before the American people the danger to the conservation policies is that the privileges of the few may continue to obstruct the rights of the many especially in the matter of water power and coal Congress must decide immediately whether the great coal fields still in public ownership shall remain so in order that their use may be controlled with due regard to the interest of the consumer or whether they shall pass into private ownership and be controlled by the monopolistic interest of a few Congress must decide also whether immensely valuable rights to the use of water power shall be given away to special interests in perpetuity and without compensation instead of being held and controlled by the public in most cases actual development of water power can best be done by private interests acting under public control but it is neither good sense nor good morals to let these valuable privileges pass from the public ownership for nothing and forever other conservation matters doubtless require action but these too the conservation of water power and of coal the chief sources of power of the present and the future are clearly the most pressing it is of the first importance to prevent our water powers from passing into private ownership as they have been doing because the greatest source of power we know is falling water furthermore it is the only great unfailing source of power our coal the experts say is likely to be exhausted during the next century our natural gas and oil in this our rivers if the forests on the watersheds are properly handled will never cease to deliver power under our form of civilization if a few men ever succeeded in controlling the sources of power eventually control all industry as well if they succeed in controlling all industry they will necessarily control the country this country has achieved political freedom what our people are fighting for now is industrial freedom and unless we win our industrial liberty we cannot keep our political liberty I see no reason why we should deliberately keep on helping to fasten the handcuffs of corporate control upon ourselves for all time merely because the few men who would profit by it most have here to for had the power to compel it the essential things that must be done to protect the water powers for the people are few and simple first the granting of water powers forever either on non-navigable or navigable streams must absolutely stop it is perfectly clear that 100 50 or even 25 years ago our present industrial conditions and industrial needs were completely beyond the imagination of the wisest of our predecessors it is just as true that we cannot imagine or foresee the industrial conditions and needs of the future but we do know that our descendants should be left free to meet their own necessities as they arise it cannot be right therefore for us to grant perpetual rights to one great permanent source of power it is just as wrong as it is foolish and just as needless as it is wrong to mortgage the welfare of our children in such a way as this water power must and should be developed mainly by private capital and they must be developed under conditions which make investment in them profitable and safe but neither profit nor safety requires perpetual rights as many of the best water power men now freely acknowledge second the men to whom the people grant the right to use water power should pay for what they get the water power sites now in the public hands are enormously valuable there is no reason whatsoever why special interests should be allowed to use them for profit without making some direct payment to the people for the valuable rights derived from the people this is important not only for the revenue the nation will get it is at least equally important as a recognition that the public controls its own property and has a right to share in the benefits arising from its development there are other ways in which public control of water power must be exercised but these too are the most important water power on non-navigable streams usually results from dropping a little water a long way in the mountains water is dropped many hundreds of feet upon the turbines which move the dynamos that produce the electric current water power on navigable streams is usually produced by dropping immense volumes of water a short distance as twenty feet fifteen feet or even less every stream is a unit from its source to its mouth and the people have the same stake in the control of water power in one part of it as in another under the constitution the United States exercises direct control over navigable streams it exercises control over non-navigable and source streams only through its ownership of the lands through which they pass as the public domain and national forests it is just as essential for the public welfare that the people should retain and exercise control of water power monopoly on navigable as on non-navigable streams if the difficulties are greater then the danger that the water powers may pass out of the people's hands on the lower navigable parts of the stream is greater than on the upper non-navigable parts and it may be harder but in no way less necessary to prevent it it must be clear to any man who has followed the development of the conservation idea that no other policy now before the American people is so thoroughly democratic in its essence and in its tendencies as the conservation policy it asserts that the people have the right and the duty and that it is their duty no less than their right to protect themselves against the uncontrolled monopoly of the natural resources which yield the necessaries of life we are beginning to realize that the conservation question is a question of right and wrong as any question must be which may involve the differences between prosperity and poverty health and sickness ignorance and education well-being and misery to hundreds of thousands of families seen from the point of view of human welfare and human progress questions which begin as purely economic often end as moral issues conservation is a moral issue because it involves the rights and the duties of our people their rights to prosperity and happiness and their duties to themselves to their descendants and to the whole future and welfare of this nation and of the moral issue taken from the fight for conservation by Gifford Pinshow 1910 recording by Robert Scott mojo move 411.com mojo move 411.com September the 16th 2007 of truth by Francis Bacon this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org what is truth suggesting pilot 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 and 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 in labor which men take in finding out of truth nor again that when it is found it imposes upon men's thoughts that doth bring lies in favor but a natural the 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 the same truth is a naked and open daylight that doth not show the masks and mummies and triumphs of the world half so stately and daintly as candle lights truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl that showeth best by day but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle that showeth best in very lights a mixture of a lie doth ever add to the pleasure doth any man doubt that if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions flattering hopes false valuations imaginations as one would and the like but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things full of melancholy and indisposition and unpleasing to themselves one of the fathers and great severity called posi venom domonum the devil's wine because it filleth the imagination and yet it is but with the shadow of a lie but it is not the lie that passeth through the mind but the lie that sinketh in and setteth in it that doth they hurt such as we spake of before but howsoever these things are thus in men's depraved judgments and affections yet truth which only doth judge itself teaches that the inquiry of truth which is the love making or wooing of it the knowledge of truth which is the presence of it and the belief of truth which is the enjoying of it is the sovereign good of human nature the first creature of God in the works of the days was the light of the sense the last was the light of reason and his Sabbath work ever since is the illumination of his spirit first he breatheth light upon the face of the matter or chaos then he breatheth light into the face of man and still he breatheth an inspired light into the face of his chosen the poet that beautified the sect that was otherwise inferior to the rest seeth yet excellently well it is a pleasure to stand upon the shore and to see ships tossed upon the sea a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth a hill not to be commanded and where the air is always clear and serene and to see the errors and wanderings and mists and tempests in the veil below so always that this prospect be with pity and not with swelling or pride certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity rest in providence and turn upon the poles of truth to pass from theological and philosophical truth to the truth of civil business it will be acknowledged even by those that practice it not that clear and round dealing is the honor of man's nature and that mixture of falsehoods is like alloy and coin of gold and silver which may make the middle work the better but it embaseth it for these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent which goeth basely upon the belly and not upon the feet there is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfidious and therefore montane seeth priddly when he inquired the reason why the word of the lie should be such a disgrace and such an odious charge seeth he if it be well weighed to say that a man lieth is as much to say as that he is brave towards God and a coward towards men for a lie faces God and shrinks from man surely the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith cannot possibly be so highly expressed as in that it shall be the last to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men it's being foretold that when Christ cometh he shall not find faith upon the earth End of Of Truth by Francis Bacon Read by Cody Logan