The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral (1625 edition)
The book opens with
Seeking, knowing and believing truth is the highest good of human nature
Their wordsBut howsoever these things are thus in men's depraved judgments, and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making, or wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature.
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