Space-Filling Thoughts

  In an essay entitled, “On the Reading of Old Books,” C. S. Lewis argued that we need to read old books, and that for every modern book read we should follow it with an old one.  The reason for this, he said, is that “Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books.”  He went on to clarify, “Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes.”  The point is that when we read old books, we can already see their mistakes, and they can help us to see ours.  This is good and sound advice, I think. However, I suppose it’s still possible to read an old book that does share many of the same mistaken assumptions as our modern books.  This is not an infallible strategy.  That is, un