well to be false, and snaps his fingers at those who still value truth
and self-respect more highly than victory or applause at any price.
Here, too, we might possibly gain by the import cargo.

Let me add that I have been repeatedly told by English merchants that
commercial honor stands higher in India than in any other country, and
that a dishonored bill is hardly known there.

I have left to the last the witnesses who might otherwise have been
suspected--I mean the Hindus themselves. The whole of their literature
from one end to the other is pervaded by expressions of love and
reverence for truth. Their very word for truth is full of meaning. It
is s a t or s a t y a, s a t being the participle of the verb _as_, to be.
True, therefore, was with them simply _that which is_. The English
_sooth_ is connected with sat, also the Greek [Greek: on] for
[Greek: _eson_], and the Latin _sens_, in _praesens_.

We are all very apt to consider truth to be what is trowed by others,
or believed in by large majorities. That kind of truth is easy to
accept. But whoever has once stood alone, surrounded by noisy
assertions, and overwhelmed by the clamor of those who ought to know
better, or perhaps who did know better--call him Galileo or Darwin,
Colenso or Stanley, or any other name--he knows what a real delight it
is to feel in his heart of hearts, this is true--this is--this is
s a t--whatever daily, weekly, or quarterly papers, whatever bishops,
archbishops, or popes, may say to the contrary.

Another name for truth is the Sanskrit _r i_t a, which originally seems
to have meant _straight_, _direct_, while a n_r i_t a is untrue, false.

Now one of the highest praises bestowed upon the gods in the Veda is
that they are s a t y a, true, truthful, trustworthy;[62] and it is well
known that both in modern and ancient times, men always ascribe to God
or to their gods those qualities which they value most in themselves.

Other words applied to the gods as truthful beings are, a d r o g h a,
lit. not deceiving.[63] A d r o g h a-v a _k_ means, he whose word is
never broken. Thus Indra, the Vedic Jupiter, is said to have been
praised by the fathers[64] "as reaching the enemy, overcoming him,
standing on the summit, _true of speech_, most powerful in thought."

D r o g h a v a _k_,[65] on the contrary, is used for deceitful men. Thus
Vasish_th_a, one of the great Vedic poets, says: "If I had worshipped
false gods, or if I believed in