Not to mention the multitudes who read merely for the sake of talking,
or to qualify themselves for the world, or some such kind of reasons;
there are, even of the few who read for their own entertainment, and
have a real curiosity to see what is said, several, which is prodigious,
who have no sort of curiosity to see what is true....
For the sake of this whole class of readers, for they are of different
capacities, different kinds, and get into this way from different
occasions, I have often wished that it had been the custom to lay before
people nothing in matters of argument but premises, and leave them to
draw conclusions themselves; which, though it could not be done in all
cases, might in many.
The great number of books and papers of amusement, which, of one kind or
another, daily come in one's way, have in part occasioned, and most
perfectly fall in with and humour, this idle way of reading and
considering things. By this means, time even in solitude is happily got
rid of, without the pain of attention; neither is any part of it more
put to the account of idleness, one can scarce forbear saying, is spent
with less thought, than great part of that which is spent in
reading.--J. BUTLER. Preface to _Sermons_.