significance, because you cannot assume a moral
significance without presenting the world as means to a higher end. The
notion that the world has a physical but not a moral meaning, is the
most mischievous error sprung from the greatest mental perversity.

ON BOOKS AND READING.

Ignorance is degrading only when found in company with riches. The poor
man is restrained by poverty and need: labor occupies his thoughts, and
takes the place of knowledge. But rich men who are ignorant live for
their lusts only, and are like the beasts of the field; as may be seen
every day: and they can also be reproached for not having used wealth
and leisure for that which gives them their greatest value.

When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental
process. In learning to write, the pupil goes over with his pen what the
teacher has outlined in pencil: so in reading; the greater part of the
work of thought is already done for us. This is why it relieves us to
take up a book after being occupied with our own thoughts. And in
reading, the mind is, in fact, only the playground of another's
thoughts. So it comes about that if anyone spends almost the whole day
in reading, and by way of relaxation devotes the intervals to some
thoughtless pastime, he gradually loses the capacity for thinking; just
as the man who always rides, at last forgets how to walk. This is the
case with many learned persons: they have read themselves stupid. For to
occupy every spare moment in reading, and to do nothing but read, is
even more paralyzing to the mind than constant manual labor, which at
least allows those engaged in it to follow their own thoughts. A spring
never free from the pressure of some foreign body at last loses its
elasticity; and so does the mind if other people's thoughts are
constantly forced upon it. Just as you can ruin the stomach and impair
the whole body by taking too much nourishment, so you can overfill and
choke the mind by feeding it too much. The more you read, the fewer are
the traces left by what you have read: the mind becomes like a tablet
crossed over and over with writing. There is no time for ruminating, and
in no other way can you assimilate what you have read. If you read on
and on without setting your own thoughts to work, what you have read can
not strike root, and is generally lost. It is, in fact, just the same
with mental as with bodily food: hardly the fifth part of what one takes
is