Sagoin.]

imprint themselves better upon paper than upon the flesh. What if I
listen to books a little more attentively than ordinary, since I watch if
I can purloin anything that may adorn or support my own? I have not at
all studied to make a book; but I have in some sort studied because I had
made it; if it be studying to scratch and pinch now one author, and then
another, either by the head or foot, not with any design to form opinions
from them, but to assist, second, and fortify those I already have
embraced. But whom shall we believe in the report he makes of himself in
so corrupt an age? considering there are so few, if, any at all, whom we
can believe when speaking of others, where there is less interest to lie.
The first thing done in the corruption of manners is banishing truth;
for, as Pindar says, to be true is the beginning of a great virtue, and
the first article that Plato requires in the governor of his Republic.
The truth of these days is not that which really is, but what every man
persuades another man to believe; as we generally give the name of money
not only to pieces of the dust alloy, but even to the false also, if they
will pass. Our nation has long been reproached with this vice; for
Salvianus of Marseilles, who lived in the time of the Emperor
Valentinian, says that lying and forswearing themselves is with the
French not a vice, but a way of speaking. He who would enhance this
testimony, might say that it is now a virtue in them; men form and
fashion themselves to it as to an exercise of honour; for dissimulation
is one of the most notable qualities of this age.

I have often considered whence this custom that we so religiously observe
should spring, of being more highly offended with the reproach of a vice
so familiar to us than with any other, and that it should be the highest
insult that can in words be done us to reproach us with a lie. Upon
examination, I find that it is natural most to defend the defects with
which we are most tainted. It seems as if by resenting and being moved
at the accusation, we in some sort acquit ourselves of the fault; though
we have it in effect, we condemn it in outward appearance. May it not
also be that this reproach seems to imply cowardice and feebleness of
heart? of which can there be a more manifest sign than to eat a man's own
words--nay, to lie against a man's own knowledge? Lying is a base vice;
a vice that one of the ancients portrays in