Error is a hardy plant; it flourisheth in every soil;
In the heart of the wise and good, alike with the wicked and foolish.
For there is no error so crooked, but it hath in it some lines of truth:
Nor is any poison so deadly, that it serveth not some wholesome use:
And the just man, enamoured of the right, is blinded by the speciousness of wrong;
And the prudent, perceiving an advantage, is content to overlook the harm,
On all thuigs created remaineth the half-effaced signature of God,
Somewhat of fair and good, though blotted by the finger of corruption:
And if error cometh in like a flood, it mixeth with streams of truth;
And the Adversary loveth to have it so, for thereby many are decoyed.
Providence is dark in its permissions; yet one day, when all is known,
The universe of reason shall acknowledge how just and good were they;
For the wise man leaneth on his wisdom, and the righteous trusteth to his righteousness,
And those, who thirst for independence, are suffered to drink of disappointment.
Wherefore? ' to prove and humble them: and to teach the idolaters of Truth,
That it is but the ladder unto Him, on whom only they should trust.
There is truth in the wildest scheme that imaginative heat hath engendered,
And a man may gather somewhat from the crudest theories of fancy:
The alchymist laboureth in folly, but catcheth chance gleams of wisdom,
And findeth out many inventions, though his crucible breed not gold;
The sinner, toying with witchcraft, thinketh to delude his fellows.
But there be very spirits of evil, and what if they come at his bidding?
He is a bold bad man who dareth to tamper with the dead;
For their whereabout lieth in a mystery ' that vestibule leaduig to Eternity,
The waiting-room for unclad ghosts, before the presence- chamber of their King.
Mind may act upon mind, though bodies be far divided;
For the life is in the blood, but souls communicate unseen:
And the heat of an excited intellect, radiating to its fellows.
Doth kindle dry leaves afar off, while the green wood around it is unwarmed.
The dog may have a spirit, as well as his brutal master;
A spirit to have in happiness: for why should he be robbed of his existence?
Hath he not a conscience of evil, a glimmer of moral sense.
Love and hatred, courage and fear, and visible shame and pride?
There may be a future rest for the patient victims of the cruel;
And a season allotted for their bliss, to compensate for unjust suffering.
Spurn not at seeming error, but dig below its surface for the truth;
And beware of seeming truths, that grow on the roots of error:
For comely are the apples that spring from the Dead Sea's cursed shore,
But within are they dust and ashes, and the hand that plucked them shall rue it.
A frequent similar effect argueth a constant cause:
Yet who hath counted the links that hind an omen to its issue?
Who hath expounded the law that rendereth calamities gregarious.
Pressing down with yet more woes the heavy-laden mourner?
Who knoweth wherefore a monsoon should swell the sails of the prosperous,
Blithely speeding on their course the children of good luck?
Who hath companied a vision from the horn or ivory gate?
Or met another's mind in his, and explained its presence?
There is a secret somewhat in antipathies; and love is more than fancy;
Yea, and a palpable notice warneth of an instant danger;
For the soul hath its feelers, cobwebs floating on the wind.
That catch events in their approach with sure and apt presentiment,
So that some halo of attraction heraldeth a coming friend.
Investing in his likeness the stranger that passed on before;
And while the word is in thy mouth, behold thy word fulfilled.
And he of whom we spake can answer for himself.
O man, little hast thou learnt of truth in things most true,
How therefore shall thy blindness wot of truth in things most false?
Thou hast not yet perceived the causes of life or motion,
How then canst thou define the subtle sympathies of mind?
For the spirit, sharpest and strongest when disease hath rent the body.
Hath welcomed kindred spirits in nightly visitations,
Or learnt from restless ghosts dark secrets of the living.
And helped slow justice to her prey by the dreadful teaching of a dream.
Verily, there is nothing so true, that the damps of error have not warped it;
Verily, there is nothing so false, that a sparkle of truth is not in it.
For the enemy, the father of Lies, the giant Upas of creation.
Whose deadly shade hath blasted this once green garden of the Lord,
Can but prevert the good, but may not create the evil;
He destroyeth, but cannot build; for he is not antagonist deity:
Mighty is his stolen power, yet is he a creature and a subject;
Not a maker of abstract wrong, but a spoiler of concrete right:
The fiend hath not a royal crown; he is but a prowling robber,
Suffered, for some mysterious end, to haunt the King's highway;
And the keen sword he beareth, once was a simple ploughshare;
Yea, and his panoply of error is but a distortion of the truth:
The sickle that once reaped righteousness, beaten from its useful curve,
With axe, and spike, and bar, headeth the marauder's halbert.
Seek not further, O man, to solve the dark riddle of sin;
Suffice it, that thine own bad heart is to thee thine origin of evil.
Transcribed from Proverbial Philosophy by Mick Puttock (Spelling, punctuation and grammer left mostly unchanged from the 25th edition)