In this section you have TWO short passages. After each passage, you will find some items based on the passage. First, read a passage and answer the items based on it. You are required to select your answers based on the contents of the passage and the opinion of the author only.
Passage-I
What is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be, that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting. And though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits, which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them, as was in those of the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labour, which men take in finding out of truth, nor again, that when it is found, it imposeth upon man’s thoughts, that doth bring lies in favour; but a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself. One of the later school of the Grecians, examineth matter, and is at a stand to think what should be in it, that men should love lies; where neither they make for pleasure as with poets, nor for advantage, as with the merchants; but for the lie’s sake. But I cannot tell; this same truth, is a naked, and open day-light, that doth not show the masks, and mummeries, and triumphs, of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond, or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men’s minds, vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds, of a number of men, poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves?
What would happen if truths were not mixed with lies?
- AThere would not be any pleasure in the pursuit of truth
- BTruth would be clear and un-diluted
- CLies would no longer be necessary
- DThe beauty of truth would shine forth
Explanation
The question asks what would happen if truths were not mixed with lies. The passage states: 'A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure.' This directly implies that without the mixture, the added pleasure would be absent. The passage also says removing vain opinions would leave minds 'poor shrunken things, full of melancholy', indicating loss of pleasure. Option (a) 'There would not be any pleasure in the pursuit of truth' follows logically: the pleasure comes from the lie mixture. Options (b), (c), (d) are not supported by the text's logic. Hence option A is correct. Key disputed: verify against the official UPSC key.