Strange Fascination

Francis Bacon begins his 1625 essay “Of Truth” with a reference to John, 18:38: “What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.” He doesn’t stay either because he already knows the answer, or knows there is no answer, or suspects that it doesn’t much matter either way. Bacon’s “jesting” makes Pilate’s query flippant, cynical, or both, and he then proceeds to autopsy the matter, tagging truth “the sovereign good of human nature.” Bacon’s conception is threefold: “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.” You inquire, you know, you enjoy—but the inquiry is everything.