The longing to know

In his immensely insightful book [Life of Samuel Johnson, L.L.D], [James] Boswell recalls several observations that Johnson made on Monday September 22, 1777. "Dr. Johnson advised me to-day," Boswell begins,

to have as many books about me as I could; that I might read upon any subject upon which I had a desire for instruction at the time. "What you read then, said he, you will remember, but if you have not a book immediately ready, and the subject moulds in your mind, it is a chance if you again have a desire to study it." He added, "if a man never has an eager desire for instruction, he should prescribe a task for himself. But it is better when a man reads from immediate inclination."

I note what Johnson advises here. Do not let things "mould," that is, grow stale and inert in our minds so that we never think of them again. Johnson suggests what we keep ready about us plenty of books on many a subject matter; that is, we need our own basic library, one that we own because we have ourselves found and purchased the books in it.

But just having a lot of books is not enough. Fools can own libraries. The devil was one of the most intelligent of the angels and we know what happened to him. Knowledge alone won't save us, though we need knowledge too. The essential thing is the "inclination to know," something that cannot be purchased or borrowed or injected. Johnson suggests that we can, to some extent, prod ourselves to know; as he puts it, we can ascribe a "task for ourselves."...

I can hardly emphasize enough that, ultimately, each must discover in his own soul this longing to know. Nothing can replace it. This longing to know constitutes the very heart of what we are as rational beings, distinct in the universe precisely because we ourselves can know. In the last analysis, we have to wake up to knowledge.

- James V. Schall S.J., "Books and the Intellectual Life", The Life of the Mind: On the Joys and Travails of Thinking

Quite a welcome quote for those of us who can't resist entering a bookstore when we pass one by, and probably find it just as hard (if not harder) not to make a purchase once we're inside. :p

Fr Schall also notes: "...used bookstores, I am going to insist here, are places to be haunted by young students as almost the equivalent of Stevenson's Treasure Island, for they are indeed full of unexpected treasures, if you know what to look for."