If writings are thus durable, and may pass from age to age throughout
the whole course of time, how careful should an author be of committing
anything to print that may corrupt posterity, or poison the minds of men
with vice and error! Writers of great talents, who employ their parts in
propagating immorality, and seasoning vicious sentiments with wit and
humour, are to be looked upon as the pests of society and the enemies of
mankind: they leave books behind them, as it is said of those who die in
distempers which breed an ill will towards their own species, to scatter
infection and destroy their posterity. They act the counterparts of a
Confucius or a Socrates; and seem to have been sent into the world to
deprave human nature, and sink it into the condition of brutality.--J.
ADDISON. _Spectator_, 166.
He who has published an injurious book, sins, as it were, in his very
grave; corrupts others while he is rotting himself.--R. SOUTH.