Furthermore, that by which the faith is more
easily defended, more widely spread, more clearly preached, ought
to be more desirable to the faithful. But this is the truth
written in books, which our Saviour plainly showed, when he was
about to contend stoutly against the Tempter, girding himself
with the shield of truth and indeed of written truth, declaring
"it is written" of what he was about to utter with his voice.
And, again, no one doubts that happiness is to be preferred to
riches. But happiness consists in the operation of the noblest
and diviner of the faculties that we possess--when the whole mind
is occupied in contemplating the truth of wisdom, which is the
most delectable of all our virtuous activities, as the prince of
philosophers declares in the tenth book of the Ethics, on which
account it is that philosophy is held to have wondrous pleasures
in respect of purity and solidity, as he goes on to say. But the
contemplation of truth is never more perfect than in books, where
the act of imagination perpetuated by books does not suffer the
operation of the intellect upon the truths that it has seen to
suffer interruption. Wherefore books appear to be the most
immediate instruments of speculative delight, and therefore
Aristotle, the sun of philosophic truth, in considering the
principles of choice, teaches that in itself to philosophize is
more desirable than to be rich, although in certain cases, as
where for instance one is in need of necessaries, it may be more
desirable to be rich than to philosophize.
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