of ideas. How great a fault there is in
untruth. Thence, of false epigrams._

We take up now the question of ideas, and postulate again that these
too must conform both to the subject and to men's character. Ideas
agree with the subject if they are true, if they are appropriate, and
if they so to speak get into the insides of the thing. They are in
accord with men's character if they fit in with natural aversions or
desires.

The primary virtue of ideas is truth. Whatever is false is at variance
with external reality, nor is there any beauty in falsity except in so
far as it pretends to truth. From this you may gather that truth is
the source of beauty, falsity of ugliness. The latter, in fact, is out
of keeping not only with reality but also with human nature. For we
possess an innate love of truth and an aversion to falsehood, so that
what delights us when it seems to be true becomes disagreeable and
unpleasant when its falseness is made manifest. This principle applies
to those learned men whom we have mentioned several times now, and has
led to the exclusion from this anthology of many epigrams in which the
point rests on a falsehood: for example, there is the well-known one
by Grotius, though simply as a poem it is noble enough:

_On Joan of Arc, who is called "La pucelle d'Orleans"_

French Amazon of never-dying fame,
Virgin untouched by men and by men feared,
Nor Venus in her eyes nor young Desire
But Mars and Terror and the bloody Weird--
France owes the Salic Law to her alone,
And hers is the true king on the true throne.
Let none lament her death who was all fire
And never, or by fire alone, should die.[8]

I have ventured to cite this that the reader may see quite clearly
what is involved in this kind of falsehood and how much it is
repugnant to nature: namely, that something is alleged the contrary of
which might as plausibly be affirmed. For Grotius might have written
no less foolishly:

Justly lament her death: she who was fire
Should not by fire but by cold water die.

Actually, if we wish to get to the bottom of this fault we will find
that men are not led to it by nature but driven to it by lack of
skill. For they would not fly to the refuge of falsehood for any other
reason than that they are not vigorous enough to elicit beauty from
the subject itself. Truth, indeed, is limited and defined, but the
realm of lies is unlimited and undefined. Hence the