THE IDEAL OF INTELLECTUAL INTEGRITY, IN LIFE AND LITERATURE*

Abstract

In just a few short lines, Bacon presents the ideal of intellectual integrity with almost poetic precision and compactness; sketches some of the characteristic intellectual vices to which human beings are susceptible; suggests how these vices arise from the interference of the will with the intellect; and describes the “vain opinions, flattering hopes, and false valuations” to which they in turn give rise. The remarkable brief essay “Of Truth” from which these lines are taken, is a rhetorical, a psychological, and a philosophical tour de force, illuminating questions about the traits of character that make some people strong, honest, thorough inquirers, and others weak, dishonest, or perfunctory: questions profoundly consequential for our understanding, and our conduct, of the Life of the mind.