Books will perhaps be found, in a less degree than is commonly imagined,
the corrupters of the morals of mankind. They form an effective
subsidiary to events and the contagion of vicious society: but, taken by
themselves, they rarely produce vice and profligacy where virtue existed
before. Everything depends upon the spirit in which they are read. He
that would extract poison from them, must for the most part come to
them with a mind already debauched. The power of books in generating
virtue is probably much greater than in generating vice.--W. GODWIN.
_The Inquirer: Of Choice in Reading._