The Proportions of Truth

Transcribed from the 1872 William Hunt and Company edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
BY THE REV. EDWARD HOARE, M.A. Vicar of Trinity Church , Tunbridge Wells , and Honorary Canon of Canterbury .
LONDON: WILLIAM HUNT AND COMPANY, HOLLES STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE; AND ALDINE CHAMBERS, PATERNOSTER ROW.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
The Proportions of Truth .
BY THE REV. EDWARD HOARE, M.A., Vicar of Trinity Church , Tunbridge Wells , and Honorary Canon of Canterbury .
Among the many wise sayings of Paschal there is one that deserves our most attentive study: viz., that few heresies have their origin in simple error, but that all that have ever attained to power have originated in the exaggeration of truth. Without that element of truth there would be no power in the error. This principle is in perfect harmony with all we see around us. In everything there are certain proportions, and nothing can compensate for their loss.
In art the painter may mix his colours in the most perfect combination; he may bring out each feature with all the power of a Rembrandt, but if the head is twice too large for the body, or the nose for the face, his beautiful painting becomes nothing better than a ridiculous caricature.
In nature God has fitted the parts of each tree in beautiful proportion. Each part—the root, the stem, the branch, the leaf,—does its work in perfect harmony. And many a beautiful tree bears nothing, simply because an ignorant gardener, by what he calls pruning, has disturbed the proportions of its parts.
In music it is the same, and Shakespeare knew it when he wrote,
“How sour sweet music is When time is broke, and no proportion kept.”
But there is no illustration more perfect than that of light. In pure white light there are many parts, but all in perfect harmony. Let any one colour be left out, or its strength be diminished, and the pure white is seen no more. If we wish for purity in light we must have the whole spectrum, and have it just as God has given it. Let man disturb it in any way whatever, let him keep back any colour, because it does not suit his taste, or isolate any other colour, because for it he feels a special preference, and the result will be that he will no longer look on the pure bright light of heaven. He need not introduce any new element; all that he has to do is to keep back a part and to disturb the proportion, and by that simple and easy process he can substitute a colour of his own devising for the pure brightness of the sunbeam.